Inside the Beltway

Looking to provide a path forward for lenders considering small-dollar products to offer consumers, federal financial regulators recently issued principles for conducting small-dollar lending.

The principles were released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Reserve, the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Read on for details from the agencies’ statement and principles.

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled with credit rating agency Morningstar Credit Ratings LLC for violating a conflict of interest rule designed to separate credit ratings and analysis from sales and marketing efforts.

Morningstar agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle the charges, although it did not admit to nor deny the charges.

Read on for details from the enforcement action.

Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) have been busy engaging with regulators and industry members on issues around the financial services industry.

McHenry sent letters to a number of federal regulators, asking for work on outstanding rules, while Waters led efforts to engage with mortgage servicers about their work on communication during the pandemic.

Read on for more details from the committee leaders.

Fulton, who was the chief operating officer at the bureau since 2018, has been named the chief operating officer for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). She will start at FHFA on May 26.

Read on for more details and the new role for FHFA’s current acting chief operating officer.

Federal legislation required that PPP loans receive a zero-percent risk weighting under the NCUA’s risk-based capital requirements. The interim final rule amends the NCUA’s capital adequacy regulation so that covered PPP loans receive a zero-percent risk weight in the agency’s risk-based net worth requirements.

Read on for more details on the interim final rule.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and Freddie Mac reported that refinance activity continued to remain strong as the rates fell again.

Read on for details from the latest on the markets.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said more than 3,000 banks had participated in the program since it launched, combination of community banks, regional banks and large banks.

Read on for details and for remarks from the three community bank CEOs in attendance.

The Mortgage Bankers Association called on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to create a separate credit facility to help provide liquidity to the servicing industry over this time. But House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that move would not be necessary.

Do servicers have access to the liquidity they may need? Read on for more details.

The scammers, taking advantage of unprecedented times, might provide false information to consumers regarding the security of their deposits or their ability to access cash.

Read on for more details from the regulator’s warnings.

“We are having a meeting — a very important meeting — with the, I would say, the greatest bankers in the world, the most important banks in the world, financial centers, and having a good discussion,” the president said.

Read on for details from the meeting and reaction from trade association leaders who attended.