Could someone please provide guidance or direction concerning the SAFE Act, with this issue in particular?

Other Job Titles – with MLO Requirement paragraph

The essential duties of this position have been identified to include actions or activities that meet the definition of mortgage loan originator (MLO) under the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act (S.A.F.E Act). As such, employees may be required to complete and maintain MLO registration through the National Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) as a mandatory requirement of this position, at the discretion of the Bank.

The Question is what kind of bank discretion could be used in order to determine whether an employee should be registered on the NMLS, if we are no longer tracking for de minimis exception?

Appreciate any feedback.





Question: is this paragraph still accurate? What kind of Bank discretion could we use to determine whether an employee should be registered on MNLSR if we are no longer tracking for de minimis exception?



Here is how I look at it è if the employee has been identified as MLO by the Bank, that employee needs to be registered on NMLS unless the Bank is tracking under de minimis exception. Since we no longer use the de minimis exception tracking log, under what exception can we say “may be required”… “at the discretion of the Bank”? Am I missing something?

Could someone who's familiar with the SAFE Act please provide some feedback? This is my inaugural year in dealing with the Act as a coordinator.

The Bank has no discretion. The employees either perform duties that require registration or they do not. So I am not sure of your question. Banks have had to have specific written policies and procedures in place for a number of years which sets forth how the bank determines which employees need to be registered. What do your written policies and procedures say?

§ 1007.104 Policies and procedures.

A covered financial institution that employs one or more mortgage loan originators must adopt and follow written policies and procedures designed to assure compliance with this part. These policies and procedures must be appropriate to the nature, size, complexity, and scope of the mortgage lending activities of the covered financial institution, and apply only to those employees acting within the scope of their employment at the covered financial institution. At a minimum, these policies and procedures must:

(a) Establish a process for identifying which employees of the covered financial institution are required to be registered mortgage loan originators;

Thanks for your input. Here's the situation. As I review our policies and procedures, I don't see anything addressing "Other Job Titles" with MLO requirement paragraph. However, it was brought to my attention that a particular job title, such as a Relationship Manager has some of the elements of the SAFE Act.

Well, job titles are really meaningless. If you have a janitor performing MLO functions they have to be registered.

You really have to drill down to what each individual really does to determine whether or not they are a MLO. Sometimes, even two people with the same title might be performing different duties causing one to be registered and one not.

I need to make the following clarification on the subject matter, which was something I had not been made aware of. (See posting below)

The situation I'm trying to address is that we have employees who do not perform SAFE Act job functions and yet they have language in their job description indicating that they in fact do (the language was previously included in the job descriptions prior to the Bank requiring that all covered transactions need to be referred to our mortgage department). At that time we were tracking for the de minimis exception so the language was appropriate.


I agree that the Bank has no discretion if someone is required to be registered and I have no concerns at this time as to who is or is not registered.

Last year’s SAFE Act audit included an Observation that the job descriptions should be updated to reflect each person’s actual roles with regard to the SAFE Act and our purpose in asking these questions is to follow up on that recommendation.

I hope this clarifies the subject matter.

rlcarey,

Did you have a chance to review my latest posting? I have additional information which may clarify the situation.

Regards,

Then I would say that unless someone gets off the stick and changes these job descriptions that the "observation" is most likely to change into a "finding" at the next audit.

It was a just a subtle way of the auditor to say - fix this before it gets you into trouble with the regulators.

Then I will relay to our Audit department that it would be incumbent on Human Resources to modify the job descriptions, as it is out of my realm of responsibility. Thanks for providing the feedback.