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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a complaint against Aequitas Capital Management, Inc., over its lending to students of Corinthian Colleges. Aequitas was accused of violating the Dodd-Frank Act’s prohibition against abusive acts and practices.
The proposed temporary increase in the HMDA reporting threshold for HELOCs would apply to institutions who make 500 or fewer such loans in the previous two years, compared to the current threshold of 100 such loans.
Data from a CFPB report shows that borrowers, taxpayers and student loan companies “would benefit from a clearer, more streamlined process to help previously defaulted borrowers succeed over the long term, and to ensure borrowers avoid default in the first place,” the bureau said.
In its brief, the CFPB argues that under binding precedent, the only relevant question to determining the constitutionality of an agency’s structure is whether or not that structure is “of such a nature that it will impede the President’s ability to perform his constitutional duty…to take care that the laws are faithfully executed” (emphasis in the original).
The bureau’s proposed rule would disrupt community bank lending because of its “extremely complex and prescriptive nature,” said executives from ICBA and CUNA. CFPB Director Richard Cordray defended the move as an attempt to eliminate debt traps.
Regulators’ action against Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania has huge ramifications for the banking industry. Three regulators − the CFPB, FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – have ordered Citizens to pay $14 million in refunds to consumers and another $20.5 million penalty.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized revisions to its international money remittances rule which will extend an exemption for certain remittances.
Community banks have a potential advantage over larger competitors under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay and Qualified Mortgage Rule, Melissa Blundell informed bankers at the Bank Holding Company Association’s Spring Seminar.
The ex-CFPB Deputy Director Raj Date has attracted criticism for creating a mortgage company which competes in nonqualified mortgages, a category of loan he helped create at the CFPB. While Date’s conduct has its critics and defenders, one thing is certain. Community banks have been pushed out of the mortgage business by the rules Date helped write, and Date’s company now plans to soak up the extra loans.
Since its creation in July 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has entered into five public consent orders with financial institutions and, in one case, a service provider, to correct alleged consumer protection violations. While these orders involved some of the biggest institutions in the industry (Capital One, Discover and American Express), there are valuable insights to be gleaned from these orders for both institutions directly monitored by the CFPB and institutions that are examined for consumer protection compliance by their prudential regulators (especially since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) joined in two of the orders).