|
Mystery shoppers help CFPB, DOJ ramp up redlining fight
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016
A regional bank based in Mississippi will pay $10.6 million to settle allegations that it engaged in redlining and discrimination after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-Department of Justice went undercover to find evidence of discrimination against African-American mortgage loan applicants and borrowers in Memphis. Read on for the latest news in the CFPB’s escalating war against redlining and mortgage lending discrimination.
|
|
|
District court upholds Cordray ratification
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
In a case that has stretched over four years, challenging the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a district court has ruled on part of the issues in the case, saying the ratification of activities approved by CFPB Director Richard Cordray during his recess appointment validates the actions. It has not, though, ruled on the constitutionality of the bureau itself. Why? Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Inside FSOC’s reversal on GE Capital’s SIFI tag
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
Three years after the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) determined that General Electric Capital Corp. could pose a threat to U.S. financial stability and was designated a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI), the FSOC reversed course and rescinded the SIFI designation for GE Capital. The move comes months after a federal court forced the FSOC to rescind its SIFI designation of MetLife for abandoning the council’s own statutory definitions during the designation process. Read on to find out what GE Capital had done to make the FSOC reconsider its SIFI designation.
|
|
|
Court set to decide CFPB’s first online lender lawsuit next month
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
A California district court is set to rule Aug. 1 on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s three-year battle against CashCall, a subprime, online loan servicer, for allegedly using its association with a company located on tribal land as a “shield” against state licensing and interest-rate cap laws. The CFPB recently moved for summary judgment in the case, and the defendant companies have responded. Here’s what each side has to say about this contentious case.
|
|
|
D.C. District denies CFPB’s motion to unseal identities
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 21, 2016
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld in a memorandum opinion and order filed June 15 that the plaintiffs in John Doe Co. v. CFPB (Civil Action No. 15-1177) may remain anonymous. Read on to learn more about the various tests that balance the needs for judicial transparency and privacy, and which test the court decided to follow.
|
|
|
Three’s company at NCUA
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
The president has nominated a third member to the board of the National Credit Union Administration to replace former board member and chairwoman Debbie Matz, who left this spring. Read on for details of the nominee.
|
|
|
Associations call on FHFA to eliminate LLPAs
Posted Date: Friday, June 24, 2016
Following the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Duty to Serve proposed rule, several trade associations – including the American Bankers Association, American Land Title Association and the National Association of Realtors ¬– have sent a letter to Director Melvin Watt, requesting that the loan-level price adjustments (LLPAs) charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac either be reduced or eliminated. Read on to learn more.
|
|
|
Glass-Steagall reinstatement: Could it really happen?
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
As unlikely as it might seem, 18 years after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the next president of the United States may make its reinstatement part of the financial services priorities for the next administration. The Republican Party announced it added the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall to its platform at the urging of presumptive nominee Donald Trump. Could the bill, which separates commercial banks from their investment banking business, be reinstated as soon as 2017? Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Lenders discuss needs, expectations for TRID compliance
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016
What does a lender want? What does a lender need? A panel of representatives from Bank of America, Evolve Bank and Trust, Quicken Loans and Wells Fargo discussed those questions as they related to TRID and vendor oversight at the National Settlement Services Summit in Charlotte, N.C. Read on to learn what they shared with attendees.
|
|
|
Supreme Court won’t hear Madden
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
The Supreme Court has denied hearing an appeal in a case involving whether state usury laws still apply after a national bank sells or assigns a loan to a non-national bank entity. The denial means the ruling in Madden v. Midland Funding Inc. will become binding precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit jurisdiction, which includes Connecticut, New York and Vermont. Moody’s Investors Service issued a report detailing the impact of the move. Read on to see what affect the case could have on selling loans to non-banks in the secondary market.
|
|
|
Was HSBC ‘too big to jail’?
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
A report prepared by Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee alleges that the Department of Justice may have decided not to prosecute HSBC and its executives for anti-money laundering law violations in 2012 because of the bank’s “systemic importance.” The lawmakers also claim that the DOJ and other government agencies have failed to respond to its requests for information, even under subpoena. Read on for what the report has to say about the DOJ’s decision-making process in the landmark $1.92 billion settlement.
|
|
|
8th Circuit dismisses whistleblower case
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 21, 2016
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed the decision that because an employee did not make a disclosure protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, his claim under the Dodd-Frank Act’s whistleblower protections failed. The case is Beacom v. Oracle America, Inc., in which the plaintiff alleged that Oracle fired him in retaliation for reporting that Oracle was falsely projecting sales revenues. Read on to learn more.
|
|
|
Fitch incorporates TRID into compliance grading
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Fitch Ratings has announced a new loan level due diligence grading methodology that is a part of its newly updated U.S. RMBS Master Criteria. The update details the grading criteria for the Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule’s (TRID) provisions on errors and exceptions. Read on to learn more.
|
|
|
Consumer loans get closer look from CFPB
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put its focus on consumer loans in the latest edition of its snapshot from the consumer complaint database. See what trends and lessons the bureau found in looking at complaints over consumer loans, vehicle loans and leases, installment loans, pawn and title loans, and personal lines of credit.
|
|
|
ICBA Securities announces new board members
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
ICBA Securities Inc., the broker-dealer subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), announced the election of three new members to its board of directors. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
VRM Mortgage Services named Top 100 African-American owned business in U.S.
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
VRM Mortgage Services announced that for the third consecutive year, it is the recipient of multiple awards bestowed by DiversityBusiness.com. Now in its 16th year, Diversitybusiness.com has been identifying the nation’s most successful entrepreneurs in a variety of categories and continues to recognize VRM as one of the country’s top African-American, diversity-owned and privately held businesses. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
National MI named to Fortune's list of best workplaces
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
National Mortgage Insurance Corporation (National MI) was named 15th best place to work in America in Fortune Magazine's ranking of the "30 Best Workplaces in Finance & Insurance." Read on for the details.
|
|
|
ClosingCorp’s Dart available through Qualia
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
ClosingCorp announced that its DART service is now available through Qualia, a cloud-based settlement software that streamlines every step in the title and escrow process. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
|
LeaderOne names senior VP of capital markets
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
LeaderOne Financial is pleased to announce the hiring of asenior vice president of capital markets who has more than 15 years of mortgage banking experience in retail, correspondent, wholesale and warehousing channels with major lenders, including Bank of America. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Nepsis welcomes new leader to advisor team
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Nepsis Capital Management, is proud to announce the latest addition to their growing team, with more than 30 years of experience in the insurance and financial services industry. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Designation work, Brexit keeping FSOC busy
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has been in the spotlight the past couple of months, with House bills looking to reign in its reach and oversight of non-bank financial companies, a court overturning its designation of MetLife as a systemically important financial institution (SIFI), and then the FSOC itself reversing course on its SIFI designation of GE Capital Corp. Still, members say the cooperative work of the agencies used to produce its annual report shows the positive impact FSOC is having on the financial industry. Read on for more details.
|
|
|
CFPB may be set for debt collection rulemaking
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
More than three years after issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could be set to announce proposed rules governing the debt collection industry. The CFPB announced it will host a field hearing July 28 on debt collection. Read on for details of the hearing and what the bureau might be preparing to propose to regulate the industry.
|
|
|
SEC’s first whistleblower chief leaving his post
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Sean McKessy, who became the first chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Whistleblower in February 2011, will leave his position at the end of month. Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Democratic senators ask regulators to prevent Trump University repeat
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
A week before the Republican National Convention met to consider Donald Trump as the party’s nominee for president, a group of Democratic senators wrote to federal agencies, calling on them to protect students and veterans from “potentially fraudulent” institutions such as Trump University. Read on for details of what the senators would ask federal agencies to do.
|
|
|
Could digital advertising be the next ‘Big Short’?
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Could digital advertising be headed toward the same disaster that subprime loans and credit default swaps met in 2008? That’s the concern of two Senate Banking Committee members, who are asking the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether government oversight of this industry has kept up with its exponential growth. What’s got the senators so worried about online consumer marketing efforts? Read on to find out why they are comparing digital advertising with organized crime.
|
|
|
OCC’s mortgage report yields few surprises
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s report for the first quarter, first-lien, residential mortgage loans performed about the same as they did in the fourth quarter of 2016, but showed slight improvement over their performance in the same period of last year.
|
|
|
FHFA says Single Security on track, Freddie set to use CSP in 2016
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently updated its implementation progress on plans to issue a single security for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Common Securitization Platform (CSP). The update described various phases of testing required for the two releases associated with the CSP, and announced the planned issuance of final Single Security features and disclosures to the market.
|
|
|
Fed issues final Volcker extension
Posted Date: Friday, July 15, 2016
Banking entities have one year to conform with Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, commonly known as the Volcker Rule, after the Federal Reserve Board issued the last of three annual extensions to compliance. Read on for the details to be sure your institution will be ready to comply.
|
|
|
Banks hold up under Fed stress tests
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016
The largest bank holding companies in the country have continued to add equity capital to strengthen their position in times of financial crisis, the Federal Reserve Board announced. It recently announced results of stress tests for 33 bank holding companies that comprise 80 percent of total banking assets in the U.S. How well did the financial industry perform? Read on for the details.
|
|
|
Supervisory Highlights cites ongoing RESPA, HMDA challenges
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016
According to the 12th edition of the bureau’s report, affiliated business activity and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data reporting remain big challenges for companies in the mortgage origination industry, while other consumer financial industries are plagued by weak compliance management systems and inadequate consumer disclosures. Here’s a breakdown of the CFPB’s supervisory activities for the first quarter of this year.
|
|
|
Bill would bolster ‘weak’ CFTC rules
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016
New legislation from Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Mark Warner and Rep. Elijah Cummings would add oversight and regulations to the derivatives market. The trio said the Dodd-Frank Act’s work to strengthen oversight of the market needed help in part because of “Republican obstruction in Congress and weak rules from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.” Read on for details of the proposal.
|
|
|
Court declines record Visa-MasterCard settlement
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has spoken: What would have been a record-breaking antitrust settlement between 12 million merchants and the credit card issuing networks is no more. Find out why the court voided the settlement and where this decade-long, contentious case is headed next.
|
|
|
Senators seek answers in Green Dot melee
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prepares to tackle regulation of the prepaid card market later this year, two Senate leaders are seeking answers about a service interruption in May that affected thousands of consumers who use Wal-Mart MoneyCards to access their paychecks and pay their bills. In letters to the companies’ executives, the senators want to know exactly what caused the outage and what the companies intend to do about it.
|
|
|
G-fee, LLPA disclosure tops NAMB’s TRID wish list
Posted Date: Friday, July 8, 2016
Piggybacking on a letter it issued last month along with 25 housing industry stakeholders that pushed for the elimination of certain government sponsored enterprise mortgage fees, the National Association of Mortgage Professionals is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider its arguments when it undertakes revisions to the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule. Find out what the association would like to see in the CFPB’s proposed rulemaking.
|
|
|
Dodd, Frank join Congress members in support of FSOC
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Twenty former and current members of Congress – including Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) – have signed an amicus brief in support of the Financial Stability Oversight Council in the council’s case against MetLife. U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer had issued an order removing the designation of MetLife as a systemically important financial institution (SIFI) subject to enhanced prudential oversight. FSOC has since appealed that decision.
|
|
|
Traditional lenders can remain competitive with the right technology
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Borrowers are starting to embrace mobile and online banking more and more, with some willing to use their phone for the entire mortgage application. Alternative lenders have embraced technology to provide the quickness sought by these tech-savvy borrowers. How can traditional financial institutions remain competitive? Eric Cummins, head of origination and compliance solutions at D+H, knows how. Read on to find out what he told Dodd Frank Update.
|
|
|
FDIC to conduct survey on small business lending
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 28, 2016
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will launch a survey on banks regarding their small business lending practices. The Small Business Lending Survey will collect data to provide additional insight on topics such as the general characteristics of banks’ small business borrowers, the types of credit offered to small businesses and the relative importance of commercial lending for banks of different sizes and business models.
|
|
|
Supervisory Highlights take special focus on mortgage servicing
Posted Date: Friday, June 24, 2016
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a special edition of its Supervisory Highlights, focusing specifically on its examination findings regarding mortgage servicers. Outdated and deficient technology was found to be at the root of several violations. The bureau also released an update of its examination manual, taking special note of two key areas. Read on to find out what those areas are.
|
|
|
FSOC details changes, recommendations in annual report
Posted Date: Friday, June 24, 2016
The Financial Stability Oversight Council held a meeting at the U.S. Treasury on June 21, where it unanimously approved its 2016 annual report. The report addresses a wide range of issues, significant financial market and regulatory developments, potential emerging threats to U.S. financial stability and FSOC activities regarding its process for designating nonbank financial companies as systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Read on to learn more.
|
|
|
CFPB motion to intervene stayed, settlement pending
Posted Date: Friday, June 24, 2016
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s unopposed motion for leave to intervene in U.S. v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC has been stayed. A settlement is pending in the False Claims Act whistleblower case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Sherman Division), in which the bureau was seeking to make sure that confidential supervisory information remained confidential. Read on to learn more.
|
|
|
FSR to candidates: How do you plan to modernize financial regulations?
Posted Date: Friday, June 24, 2016
As part of its 2016 Presidential Focus Series, the Financial Services Roundtable has demanded that presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders provide details on how they plan to increase transparency, modernize and better coordinate the financial regulatory process. Read on to learn more about the 10 specific questions posed.
|
|