The financial firm Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay the federal government more than $200 million to settle charges of fraudulent mortgage practices that cost taxpayers nearly twice that amount. According to the settlement, a Deutsche Bank subsidiary insured its home loans under a federal program despite not meeting the program’s requirements. The federal government was forced to pay when the mortgages later defaulted. In a statement, U.S. prosecutors with the Southern District of New York said the bank and its subsidiary had used federal insurance as “free government money to backstop lending practices that did not follow the rules.”