CFPB, Federal Agencies, State Agencies, and Attorneys General
In the latest edition of its Consumer Compliance Outlook, the Federal Reserve (Fed) identified the four most significant fair lending violations that it found in examining state member banks in 2022. These are violations that were typically identified in examinations as matters requiring attention or as matters requiring immediate attention.
Fair Lending Risk Assessment.… Continue Reading
Seventeen financial services trade groups are calling on the CFPB to abandon its plan to amend rules under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to vastly expand the scope of the FCRA by redefining what a “consumer report” is and who is a “consumer reporting agency.” As previously reported, while the CFPB touts the proposal as one to cover data brokers, it is much broader than that.… Continue Reading
Republicans on Capitol Hill are seeking to repeal a section of the Dodd-Frank Act that requires financial institutions to report information contained in loan applications submitted by women-owned, minority-owned and LGBTQI+-owned small businesses.
“My bill seeks to eliminate costly regulatory burdens on financial institutions, ensuring greater access to credit for small businesses,” House Small Business Committee Chairman Rep.… Continue Reading
The CFPB has taken action against the Draper & Kramer Mortgage Corp. (DKMC) based on allegations of discriminatory lending activities that, according to the CFPB, discouraged homebuyers from applying to the company for home mortgage loans in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the Chicago and Boston areas.
The CFPB alleged that from 2019 through 2021, DKMC, a non-bank mortgage lender based in Downers Grove, Illinois, engaged in redlining, and that this resulted in the company significantly underperforming its peers in lending activity in the Chicago and Boston areas.… Continue Reading
Led by the California Mortgage Bankers Association, five lenders have made commitments to provide mortgage relief for the victims of the California wildfires.
The five institutions are Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.
The banks will offer up to a 90-day grace period on mortgage payments, 90-day waiver of late fees, and 60- to 90-day moratorium on new foreclosures for property owners whose structures were damaged or destroyed.… Continue Reading
The CFPB is calling on state governments to increase their focus on consumer financial protection laws.
“Enforcing consumer protection law has long been a state-federal partnership in which the states have often taken the lead,” the CFPB said, in a report that includes legislative and regulatory language that states may use.… Continue Reading
The CFPB has published a proposed rule that would ban companies from using contract clauses that the bureau said limit fundamental freedom, including those that waive a consumer’s legal rights and fine print that suppresses speech.
“For decades, companies have slowly eroded Americans’ rights by slipping clauses into take-it-or-leave-it contracts that seek an unfair leg up by attempting to deny individuals the benefits of a free market,” the bureau said, in releasing the proposed rule.… Continue Reading
In an effort to foster innovation in financial services, the CFPB is reinstituting its programs that allow companies to obtain regulatory safe harbors through no-action letters and sandboxes to test new products and services.
The CFPB had such programs during the first Trump Administration, but the Biden Administration scrapped them, saying that they were ineffective and unfair.… Continue Reading
As previously reported, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (Act), enacted in 2018, directs the CFPB to prescribe regulations that apply Truth in Lending Act (TILA) ability-to-repay (ATR) requirements to Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) transactions, and apply the TILA civil liability provisions to violations of the requirements.… Continue Reading
The CFPB recently issued a final rule increasing the asset exemption threshold for the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) requirement to maintain an escrow account for a higher-priced mortgage loan (HPML).
Regulation Z, which implements the TILA, generally requires creditors to maintain an escrow account for the payment of taxes and insurance on a first lien HPML.… Continue Reading
