Matthew Doffing – Page 5

CFPB releases list of counties considered rural and/or underserved

On May 16, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a list of counties it considers underserved and/or rural.

Has the CFPB stepped beyond its charter?

“Our mission is to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says on its about page. A laudable goal, financial markets should work for consumers. But now the bureau has stepped past overseeing financial products, to overseeing the goods purchased with financial products.

CFPB encourages in-school branches

In its white paper on financial education released in April, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pointed to in-school branches as a way to build students’ financial literacy through hands-on learning.

CFPB says payday loans and bank deposit advances are same product

Banks offering deposit advances or considering it, take note. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sees deposit advances as functionally equivalent to payday loans.

A third official makes a private venture out of stint at CFPB

Raj Date, the former deputy director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who resigned from the CFPB earlier this year, has opened an advisory firm for banks focusing on consumer finance, according the American Banker.

CFPB releases mortgage compliance guide for small banks

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a compliance guide to aid small banks and mortgage lenders in understanding and complying with the bureau’s Ability-to-Repay and Qualified Mortgage Rule, which goes into effect January, 2014

Financial institutions resolved vast majority of complaints submitted to the CFPB

Banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies and credit reporting agencies resolved all but 2 percent of the complaints sent to them by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2012, according to the bureau’s semi-annual report to Congress and the President released March 29.

U.S. Chamber reports shortcomings in CFPB examinations

Mortgage originators and other companies regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have found the examination process inefficient and an unjustifiably burdensome, according to a letter sent by David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, to CFPB Director Richard Cordray in February.

Fed Inspector General to evaluate CFPB enforcement attorneys at bank examinations

Last week, the Fed’s Office of Inspector General decided it will evaluate the presence of CFPB enforcement attorneys at bank examinations

Cordray says small lenders should not be limited by QM rule

After testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Feb. 14 that community banks and credit unions did not cause the recent mortgage meltdown, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray told credit union mortgage lenders yesterday they should not fear writing loans which fall outside the “qualified mortgage” protection of the Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule.