Citigroup recently agreed to pay more than $19 million in fines to the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for mortgage-related issues and unauthorized trading.    The Fed fined the bank $8.6 million, citing improper handling of residential mortgage-related documents, while the SEC levied $10.5 million in fines against the company over allegations that employees engaged in unauthorized proprietary trading, and for failing to detect fraudulent loans issued by one of its subsidiaries.  

President Donald Trump recently signed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019, which excludes a provision opposed by credit union advocates who argued it would have put credit unions at a disadvantage. Banking advocates wrote to congressional leaders arguing that the provision would help provide military members more suitable options for their financial needs and increase fairness in the military marketplace. 

Asserting that the Dodd-Frank Act does not expressly authorize the agency to examine financial companies for Military Lending Act (MLA) violations, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Mick Mulvaney recently decided to suspend supervisory activities related to the law. Bureau spokesman John Czwartacki said Mulvaney reached his decision after a thorough review of the agency’s procedures intended to curb what the Trump administration and many financial industry professionals considered overly aggressive enforcement activities.

Siding with certain banking trade groups, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service recently proposed rules and guidance stipulating that banks qualify for a tax deduction created by the enactment of the 2017 tax reform bill to help small businesses. Treasury stated that “banking” and “financial services” are separate industries, with financial services qualifying as a specified service trade or business, unable to access the 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through entities.

It is important to have a plan and think out what you will need to do in the minutes, days and months after an attack occurs, but it is also critically important to know who to make aware of the situation and how you can help one another. During the National Settlement Services Summit, experts in the field shared how to best work with your partners after a cyberattack. 

A new task force initiated by an executive order from President Donald Trump is intended to fight fraud through the combined efforts of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures and Trading Commission, as well as other government agencies and officials. The task force is the latest in a series of similar coalitions created by previous administrations.

The method by which companies file operational financial statement information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will change over the next three years as the agency phases in rule amendments mandating the use of Inline XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) for such filings.  The adoption of Inline XBRL, which is both human- and machine-readable for the purposes of validation, aggregation and analysis, is part of the SEC’s ongoing disclosure modernization initiative.

At the 2018 National Settlement Services Summit (NS3) in Detroit, panelists addressed how title agents, the keepers of critical data “gold,” can best leverage it to acquire market share and business. The title agent is at the center of the closing transaction and captures critical data elements that lenders need to meet for compliance.  DocMagic eServices Director Tim Anderson and Pepper Hamilton, LLP, Special Counsel John Levonick told the audience that despite two years of TRID and now with the new FHFA Uniform Closing Dataset requirement, most processes are still very manual so they keep asking the regulatory agencies and GSEs to water down and delay the requirements.

The latest issue to come to light at Wells Fargo is a software glitch that caused hundreds of borrowers, who subsequently lost their homes, to be denied loan modifications from April 2010 and October 2015.  The bank disclosed details about the matter in a 10-K filing the company submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and has set aside approximately $8 million to redress those affected.