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News By Edition
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Dodd Frank Update Monthly Edition
Dodd Frank Update August 2020
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SimpleNexus, SurefireCRM enhance integration
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Top of Mind Networks, a leader in customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation software for the mortgage lending industry, has added two-way data sync to its integration with digital mortgage app SimpleNexus.
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Warren, Cordray discuss growth of CFPB
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
As the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank Act approached, the Americans for Financial Reform consumer group brought together two of the creators of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to talk about its growth in the past decade.
The event, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former CFPB Director Richard Cordray in Conversation, was the first in a webinar series offered by the group titled “A Decade after Dodd-Frank: What Next? Building a Just Financial System.”
Read on for details from their conversation.
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NS3 Preview: Regulators, vendor management highlighted in Compliance Track
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
The 16th annual National Settlement Services Summit (NS3), slated for Sept. 1-3, will feature an entire compliance track this year, one of three tracks featured at the show.
Four top regulators will kick things off by participating in a panel discussion about how many of the regulations affecting the industry recently are coming from the state level.
Read on to see who is speaking, details about a vendor management session, what other compliance topics will be discussed and how you can register.
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OCC proposes to define true lender
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Little more than a month after taking over at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), acting comptroller Brian Brooks announced the agency would propose a rule on defining the true lender in a transaction.
The move comes on the heels of the OCC issuing a rule finalizing the “valid when made” doctrine on Brooks’ first day at the helm.
Read on for details about how the OCC will determine who the true lender of a transaction will be.
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Quicken family estimates Q2 profits top last three years combined
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
They are only estimates, but the financial details updated by the parent company of Quicken Loans shows just how strong of a second quarter the mortgage industry put together.
Rocket Companies, the parent of Quicken and Amrock which is filing for an initial public offering, updated its projections for its second-quarter results in a regulatory filing Friday.
Read on for details, including how estimated profits for the second quarter are higher than the company’s total profits from 2017-2019.
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ABA urges banks to require masks
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
After consultation with the association’s executive committee, American Bankers Association President and CEO Rob Nichols wrote member banks, urging all of them to adopt a policy requiring anyone entering a branch to wear a mask or face covering.
Nichols said the move would be taken to protect the health of bank employees and customers.
Read on for more details behind the move from the banking association.
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CFPB issues escrow rule, ratifies previous actions
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ticked off the last to-do item on its mandatory rulemaking from the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA), issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking on escrow rules around higher-priced mortgage loans.
The bureau said the proposed amendment would further the goals EGRRCPA by reducing costs associated with escrow requirements.
Read on for more details, including the bureau’s decision to ratify all its regulatory actions.
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Fifth Third Bank, Trust & Will announce strategic relationship
Posted Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
Fifth Third Bank, National Association, and Trust & Will announced a new strategic relationship to further help Fifth Third’s customers protect and secure their families’ financial future. Fifth Third customers will be able to prepare an estate plan online through Trust & Will in a matter of minutes and will have access to discounted pricing.
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CBC Mortgage Agency extends borrower counseling to 18 months
Posted Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
CBC Mortgage Agency (CBCMA), a nationally chartered housing finance agency and a leading downpayment assistance source for first-time homebuyers, has extended its post-purchase counseling for borrowers from one year to 18 months.
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National MI integrates with Cloudvirga
Posted Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
National Mortgage Insurance Corp., a subsidiary of NMI Holdings, Inc., announced that it is fully integrated with Cloudvirga’s digital mortgage origination platform for retail and wholesale lenders.
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Freedom Mortgage sets monthly volume record
Posted Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
Freedom Mortgage, one of the nation’s largest full-service non-bank mortgage companies and a leader in VA and government-insured lending, funded nearly $11.3 billion in mortgage loans during the month of June, a new monthly record for the company.
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Promontory MortgagePath expands operations
Posted Date: Monday, July 20, 2020
Promontory MortgagePath LLC, a leading provider of comprehensive digital mortgage origination and tech-driven fulfillment solutions, announced that it has opened a new fulfillment center in Denver.
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Authors reflect on decade’s impact of Dodd-Frank Act
Posted Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
As chairmen of the financial committees in Congress in 2010, Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank had their names go down in history when the financial reform package they authored was signed into law as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
A decade later, the two men sat down for a conversation about the impact of their work, how financial reform has been implemented and what remains to be done.
Read on for details from their assessments.
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Cordray talks CFPB future with panel
Posted Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray participated in a panel discussion at the Brookings Institute event titled, “A decade of Dodd-Frank” one day after the Supreme Court ruled that the agency was unconstitutional.
The hour-long discussion, which included former Independent Community Bankers Association President and CEO Cam Fine, discussed the growth of the bureau over its first 10 years, and what the agency’s future looked like in the wake of the court ruling.
Read on for details from the discussion.
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Former Fed chair Yellen wants new Dodd-Frank
Posted Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
Former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen joined current Fed Gov. Lael Brainard and former Fed Gov. Jeremy Stein to discuss the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on the banking and financial services industry over the past 10 years.
Among the top takeaways from the discussion was Yellen’s desire for Congress to create a new Dodd-Frank Act.
Read on for details from their discussion.
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What lies ahead for CFPB?
Posted Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
As the Dodd-Frank Act marks its 10th anniversary, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau looks ahead to celebrating a decade of existence in 2021.
The settling of the agency’s constitutionality and existence might provide some certainty, but with the country dealing with the effects of the pandemic on jobs and housing, two experts talked with Dodd Frank Update about what might lie ahead for the bureau.
Read on for more details.
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Supreme Court to decide FHFA constitutionality
Posted Date: Friday, July 17, 2020
Months after ruling on the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Supreme Court has agreed to address the issue for another federal agency.
The Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari to a pair of cases, Collins v. Mnuchin and Mnuchin v. Collins, which will be consolidated and heard in the court’s fall term.
Read on for more details about the decision.
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Analyzing CFPB’s ability to cover redress shortfalls
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
In the past two-and-a-half years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has identified more than $41.2 million in redress to harmed consumers which companies and individuals could not return.
In July the bureau handed down two actions in which less than 1 percent of consumer redress was paid by companies or individuals charged with violations.
The bureau has said it will use its Civil Penalty Fund to provide redress which is identified but not paid in orders, but does it have the means to do so?
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Whitepaper details security concerns, best practices
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
A new whitepaper from Safe Systems examines a recent survey conducted by the company, along with best practices for handling security and compliance concerns.
The paper is titled “Top 10 Banking Security and Compliance Concerns for Community Banks and Credit Unions.”
Read on for details from the company, and what it determined was the best line of defense against cyberattacks.
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CFPB lowers civil penalty requirement in enforcement
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced it had reached a settlement with a debt-relief services company over allegations of violations of the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
If the settlement is approved by the court, the company will be required to pay only 0.6 percent of the $3.8 million in redress and civil money penalties sought by the bureau.
Read on for more details.
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Rates go lower, as do forbearance requests
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Mortgage rates continued to reach new record-low levels in the past week, spurring more origination applications, while the share of mortgages in forbearance continued to decrease.
Both the Mortgage Bankers Association and Freddie Mac announced new survey lows for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in the past week.
Read on for more details from the latest market information.
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Wells picks new home lending chief
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Wells Fargo announced that it has hired a new head of home lending.
The new hire will replace Michael DeVito, who has announced plans to retire later this summer after more than 23 years with Wells Fargo. She comes to the bank from Flagstar.
Read on for more details about the new addition.
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Quicken family notes CFPB investigation in IPO filing
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
Coming off its most productive quarter in history, the Quicken Loans family of companies announced it would move for an initial public offering (IPO).
The IPO filing detailed financial information for the company dating back to 2017, and also included news of an investigation started in May 2020 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Read on for details from the company’s filing.
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NS3 Preview: Regulators, largest underwriter panel yet featured
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
Department of Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Brian Montgomery and Fannie Mae Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Douglas G. Duncan will be featured speakers at the 2020 National Settlement Services Summit (NS3).
NS3 will be conducted Sept. 1-3, and also will feature a panel of seven of the top 11 largest title insurance underwriters in the country.
Read on for more details about their appearances.
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CFPB gets new deputy director
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau once again has a full-time second in command, as Director Kathy Kraninger announced that Thomas Pahl had been named deputy director.
Pahl takes over for Brian Johnson, who left the bureau to return to private practice in February. Leonard Chanin had served in the role in an acting capacity, but since has returned to his role at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as the deputy to the chairwoman, Jelena McWilliams.
Read on for more details about Pahl, as well as the creation of a new division at the agency.
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GAO warns of ‘essential’ need for PPP fraud review
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on federal programs to combat the coronavirus crisis specifically calls out the need for improved fraud detection and prevention efforts in the Paycheck Protection Program.
The report states that the risks to the program extend beyond the loans of $2 million or more which the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration have said will be subject to stricter reviews.
Read on for more details from the GAO’s recommendations.
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CFPB charges company with deceptive acts
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed suit in New York against a financial-services company doing business as Loan Doctor, saying the company took money from healthcare professionals who expected to invest in a savings certificate of deposit account, but never did.
The bureau charged the company with four violations of the deceptive prong of the agency’s UDAAP authority in filing the lawsuit.
Read on for details, including what the company founder did after the CFPB investigation had been revealed.
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NCUA moves to reinstate rural member districts
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
In the wake of the resolution of the court case challenging the National Credit Union Administration’s (NCUA) field of membership rule, the agency announced it would work to help credit unions impacted by the process.
A challenge from a banking trade association led to the removal of rural districts for 18 credit unions, and NCUA announced it was in the process of reinstating those districts.
Read on for more details from the regulator.
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NCUA details minority CU report to Congress
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) recently released its annual report to Congress detailing the financial condition of minority credit unions.
The report discussed the agency’s efforts to preserve and promote the formation of minority depository institutions.
Read on for more details from the report and NCUA Chairman Rodney Hood.
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SimpleNexus launches ConnectUs Chat
Posted Date: Thursday, July 9, 2020
SimpleNexus announced the release of SimpleNexus ConnectUs Chat, a messaging feature that enables real-time loan file collaboration between loan originators (LOs), borrowers and real estate agents within the SimpleNexus platform.
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CFPB: Borrowers have ‘practical means to avoid harm’ of payday loans
Posted Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized as proposed its amendments to the 2017 small-dollar lending rule, rescinding the ability to repay provisions of the original rule and all the determinations that went along with it.
The bureau declined, however, to abandon the payments provisions of the original rule, and Director Kathy Kraninger ratified those measures in finalizing the rule.
Read on for details from the new rule as well as industry reaction.
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Whitepaper details digital labor best practices
Posted Date: Monday, July 6, 2020
LoanLogics has released a whitepaper explaining how mortgage lenders can employ digital labor more effectively with human staff, more flexibly as their digital workforce grows and more strategically using verified loan file data to power even more sophisticated automated solutions.
The whitepaper, titled “A Field Guide for the Care and Feeding of Digital Labor,” defines and lays out best practices for implementing a digital workforce.
Read on for more details and highlights from the paper.
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CFPB agenda plans slow continuation of rulemaking work
Posted Date: Monday, July 6, 2020
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau laid out its rulemaking plans for the next six months, showing it is pushing forward on activity during the pandemic – although it does not expect to have much finalized before the end of the year.
There are two topics in the final rule stage that the bureau listed on its Spring 2020 Agenda, and one of them is finalizing the protection and disclosure of confidential information the agency collects from supervised institutions.
Read on for details of the new, and old, areas which appear in the bureau’s plans.
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Credit union assets, deposits rise in quarter
Posted Date: Monday, July 6, 2020
The National Credit Union Administration released its latest quarterly report on the credit union industry, finding that assets and deposits in federally insured credit unions rose in the first quarter of 2020 from a year earlier.
The industry posted profits of $8.4 billion in the quarter, down from a year earlier, in part because of a jump in provisioning for loan and lease losses or credit loss expenses.
Read on for more highlights from the report.
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Regulators highlight LIBOR transition risks
Posted Date: Monday, July 6, 2020
Federal financial regulators issued a statement to institutions on managing the transition away from LIBOR, encouraging them to continue work to transition to alternative reference rates.
The statement from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council also highlighted the legal and consumer compliance risks associated with inadequate fallback language, when the contractual language does not contemplate LIBOR’s permanent discontinuance.
Read on for more details from the agencies’ statement.
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Mortgage rates reach new record lows
Posted Date: Monday, July 6, 2020
Record-low mortgage rates continued in the past week, and with that, homeowners marked historically high levels of tappable equity and refinance ability.
Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in its survey ending July 2 fell to 3.07 percent, the lowest rate in the survey’s history, dating back to 1971.
Read on for details from the latest reports, and its impact on the pools of refinance candidates.
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Court strikes down single-director structure of CFPB
Posted Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020
In a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court struck down the for-cause protection provided to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Dodd-Frank Act, saying it is “incompatible with the structure of the Constitution.”
In a 5-4 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court declined to strike down the entire Dodd-Frank Act, as Seila Law, LLC, had asked it to do if the court found the structure unconstitutional.
Read on for details and reaction on the long-awaited decision.
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Congress extends PPP; 1-page forgiveness form supported
Posted Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020
As the Paycheck Protection Program reached its final day, the Senate decided it wasn’t done with the program quite yet.
With about $134 billion still left in its coffers, the Senate on June 30 unanimously approved an extension to the program through Aug. 8. The House approved the measure the next night.
In addition, new legislation introduced in the Senate would reduce the forgiveness process for borrowers with loans of less than $150,000 to a one-page attestation. Read on for all the latest.
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OCC warns of increasing compliance risk
Posted Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released its Semiannual Risk Perspective report, finding that the current pandemic will stress financial performance this year.
The report also said that compliance risk is on the rise, in part because of federal programs related to the CARES Act and Paycheck Protection Program.
Read on for more insight from the report.
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Banks pass stress tests as Fed remains cautious
Posted Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020
The Federal Reserve announced that all 34 of the banks which it put through stress tests had passed, but said the banks would be required to submit new capital plans later in the year to address stresses related to the pandemic.
In addition to its regular stress test, the Fed used downside scenarios which could result from the pandemic, and found that in two of the three scenarios, several banks would approach minimum capital levels.
Read on for more details from the results, as well as reaction from Moody’s Analytics and the American Bankers Association.
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C Squared Social, OptifiNow announce partnership
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2020
C Squared Social announced the formation of a partnership and integration with OptifiNow. The collaboration of these two companies pairs the targeted digital lead generation expertise of C Squared Social with the enterprise solutions designed to deliver sales support and management at every point in the customer life cycle from OptifiNow.
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SimpleNexus, Optimal Blue enhance integration
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2020
SimpleNexus, developer of the leading digital mortgage platform for loan officers, borrowers and real estate agents, announced significant enhancements to its integration with Optimal Blue, the leading provider of secondary marketing solutions and data services in the mortgage industry.
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Supreme Court declines to hear ABA appeal of FOM rule
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2020
The process for the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) to change its field of membership rule has taken nearly four years, but the credit union regulator finally got some certainty when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal made by the American Bankers Association to the rule.
NCUA promulgated the rule in October 2016, but the banking association filed suit two months later, and the rule has been debated in court since.
Read on for details and reaction from credit union and banking advocates.
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Regulators tweak Volcker, swap margin rules
Posted Date: Friday, June 26, 2020
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) approved changes at its board meeting June 25 in which the financial federal regulators approved rules modifying the Volcker Rule and the swap margin rule, along with codifying the FDIC’s standards on valid-when-made.
The changes were all supported by the leaders of the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The vice chairman of the FDIC, Martin Gruenberg, voted against all three rules.
Read on for details of the changes, along with reaction from the regulators, industry and consumer groups.
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Kraninger signals concern as complaints soar
Posted Date: Friday, June 26, 2020
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger recently spoke before the Consumer Data Industry Association, sounding a note of caution to the industry as the bureau found consumer complaints at all-time highs in April and May.
She noted the work that servicers, furnishers and consumer reporting agencies need to do to help troubled consumers during the pandemic.
Read on for details from Kraninger’s remarks.
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Non-banks grew market share in 2019
Posted Date: Friday, June 26, 2020
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) announced the release of 2019 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), finding a decline in the number of reporting institutions, a growth in originations from 2018 and a continued market shift toward non-banks.
“The HMDA data are the most comprehensive publicly available information on mortgage market activity,” FFIEC said in a release announcing the data’s availability.
Read on for details on the HMDA data, including growth in government-backed mortgages in 2019.
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Trades object again to Rakuten FDIC application
Posted Date: Friday, June 26, 2020
Three banking trade associations wrote to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., asking the prudential regulator not to review or approve a re-submission for federal deposit insurance.
The associations previously objected to the application by Rakuten Card Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., and said the revised application does “little to address” the concerns they previously raised.
Read on for details of the trade associations’ objections to the application.
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NCUA FAQs detail working with hemp-related businesses
Posted Date: Friday, June 26, 2020
Looking to provide a boost to credit unions interested in adding hemp-related businesses as customers, the National Credit Union Administration issued a new set of FAQs focused on compliantly serving those businesses.
The agency said hemp-related businesses have been affected by the pandemic, as other businesses have, and reminded credit unions that the information and FAQs provide no new expectations or requirements for credit unions.
Read on for more about how the regulator says credit unions can work with these businesses.
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Evolve added to Fitch TPR list
Posted Date: Thursday, June 25, 2020
Evolve Mortgage Services, a top provider of outsourced mortgage solutions, has been designated as an “Acceptable” third-party review (TPR) firm by Fitch Ratings for loans included in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) that Fitch rates.
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Mnuchin shifts course, will detail some of PPP borrower info
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
After taking criticism for telling a Senate committee that the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) would not be releasing details on the names and loan amounts for participants in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced a change in course.
The change will provide detailed information on companies who took out loans of more than $150,000, which account for 15 percent of the PPP loans issued.
Read on for more details, along with details of SBA’s new tool to match borrowers with small community lenders.
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Industry backs bill to create CFPB commission
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
A group of leading industry trade associations wrote to Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) recently to express their support for her recently introduced bill to turn the leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into a multi-member commission.
The move comes as the Supreme Court nears the end of its term, with a pending case which could decide the constitutionality of the bureau’s single-director structure.
Read on for more details from the letter the associations sent.
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NCUA details restart of on-site examinations
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) wrote to covered credit unions to detail its multi-phase transition plan for resuming on-site examinations.
The phased transition plan provides a framework for how and when staff resumes an on-site presence at both NCUA offices and credit unions and could begin as early as July 6.
Read on for details from the regulator.
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CUNA forms task force on pandemic
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Credit Union National Association announced that it was bringing together leaders from throughout the credit union industry to work on business operations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Credit Union System COVID-19 Restart and Recovery Task Force will meet biweekly to discuss strategic priorities including business continuity, digital services and automation, staffing and operations and industry financial impact.
Read on for more details and the makeup of the task force.
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Legislation would allow second PPP loan for businesses
Posted Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Senate and House Democrats introduced companion legislation which would create an opportunity for small businesses which already have received a Paycheck Protection Program loan to be able to receive a second loan.
The legislation includes restrictions primarily based on a demonstrable loss of revenue during the pandemic, and would extend the period in which companies could apply for a loan through at least the end of the year.
Read on for details from the new legislation.
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