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A group of state attorneys general, as well as a coalition of financial services trade groups, are among those who submitted comments on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) statement of policy regarding the prohibition of abusive acts or practices as spelled out in the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010.

The CFPB’s explanation of abusive conduct drew different responses from both groups.

Amidst the flurry of briefs filed by parties and friends of the court, the U.S. Supreme Court announced the date it will hear the oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure.

The question before the court has the potential to challenge everything the bureau has done since its creation and could impact other agencies that have similar funding structures so as to insulate them from political sway.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) levied charges against Merrill Lynch and parent company BAC North America Holding Co. for failing to file hundreds of suspicious activity reports (SARs) as required by the Bank Secrecy Act and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Merrill Lynch agreed to pay a $6 million penalty to settle the SEC charges and a separate $6 million fine to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority over the unfiled reports.

A federal jury found a former director of a New York bank guilty of five counts connected to a scheme to obtain a fraudulent $1.4 million loan from the bank, which collapsed months after the incident. The maximum sentence he faces on all charges is 125 years in prison.

MISMO announced the final release of the latest version of the MISMO Life of Loan process model. Among other updates, the tool is now available as an online interactive version.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra highlighting findings from a recent investigation into late fee practices by credit card issuers and urging the bureau to finalize its proposed rule regarding late fees.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ordered Bank of America to pay $100 million to consumers for “double-dipping” on fees for customers with insufficient funds, for withholding credit card rewards from customers and for opening phony accounts.

Bank of America also must pay $150 million in penalties to the CFPB and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission joined the U.S. Solicitor General in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court for Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC, which was granted certiorari in May.

The suit involved the anti-retaliation provision of the whistleblower protection section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sent its annual Fair Lending Report to Congress. The report describes the bureau’s fair lending activities in enforcement and supervision, guidance and rulemaking, interagency coordination, and outreach and education for 2022.

Last year, the CFPB dedicated significant resources to aiding consumers and communities most affected by unlawful discrimination.

In a recent address to the European Central Bank Forum on Central Banking, Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chair Jerome Powell stated the U.S. central bank is paying close attention to financial institutions that are heavily exposed to the commercial real estate sector.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate reached its highest level for 2023 in the week of July 4, according to Freddie Mac, while mortgage applications climbed slightly.

Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee, led by committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), sent a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, urging the consumer finance industry watchdog to take action to protect consumers from scams and fraud caused by artificial intelligence.

The prudential regulators announced over a year ago that they intended to revisit and update much of the regulatory framework around mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for financial institutions. That's when the FDIC began the process of updating the Bank Merger Act regulations, as technology and market dynamics have caused significant changes since the act was passed in 1960.

As regulators begin to reveal some of these updates, we can begin to understand the new M&A framework that they intend to implement.

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Cryptocurrency has been a hot-button issue for legislators and regulators in recent years, but which regulator is in charge of overseeing the issuance and use of the digital asset remains unclear.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asserted itself as the chief regulator, but time will tell if that remains true. The commission has yet to take a definitive position on whether all cryptocurrencies are securities. However, it has made the legal argument that cryptocurrencies are investment contracts.

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Though artificial intelligence is not a new idea, its usefulness in banking has become more prevalent in recent years.

Regulators, however, have struggled to keep up with the adoption of these technologies. This may be because the technology is moving faster than the regulatory process does, eclipsing the speed of lawmakers who provide the agencies with the tools necessary to regulate these emergent technologies.

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Third-party relationships are nothing new for banks and lenders, but working with financial technology (fintech) firms has brought about a new set of problems, and regulations, that all parties should be aware of.

In June 2023, regulators issued a long-anticipated joint update to the OCC’s 2013 guidance on risk management for banks engaging in third-party relationships. This new guidance provides risk management expectations when working with third parties, including fintechs.

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Dodd Frank Update Editor Logan Barno comments on some of the new and old practices regulators are focusing on and the experts that offered insight into current and upcoming regulation.

From mergers and acquisitions and third-party partnerships to fintech partnerships, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) tools, and cryptocurrency, the “Who’s My Regulator?” report reviews which federal and state agencies are the primary regulators for those activities and the current state of regulations in each area.

Click for more features in the Who's My Regulator? report