statements

CURRENTLY - as of today - is a bank required to give a statement or coupon book or the like to a customer with a mortgage loan? In other words, is there something required to be given as a result of each payment made with the notice of when the next payment needs to be made?

Currently - Not unless required by State law.

We have customers on our Automatic Payment Program that do not receive a monthly statement (the customer can choose to receive a statement or not). Will we now be required to send the customers that have requested not to receive a paper statement a statement? We do not offer estatements at this time however they can access their account information on On-Line Banking, but signing up for that is under the customers control.

Unless you are a small servicer, you have two choices, coupon books for fixed rate loans or monthly statements.

We are, so we won't...

Currently, our mortgage loans are included on the regular period statements. List checking accounts then savings accounts, consumer loans (not visa) then real estate loans (non-escrowed).

We have separate VISA statements due to the big stmt changes several years ago.

Should we start sending separate mortgage statements due to the pending changes? That seems easiest with this new format.

Thoughts are appreciated.

Oh, I think you'll need to have separate mortgage billing statements, for certain.

Let's step back and review my April 24 comment. Prompted by one of our astute Threads readers, I reviewed the regulatory language. There is nothing there that prohibits combining mortgage statements with other statements. In fact, there is language that says nothing in section 1026.41 "combining disclosures required by this subpart, unless such prohibition is expressly set forth in this subpart, or other applicable law."

I just didn't think it was feasible to combine a mortgage statement complying with 1026.41 with other statements. But I've been amazed at the ingenuity of many banks and service providers who have crafted well-designed combinations of otherwise disparate things, so I really have to soften my "for certain" comment, and suggest that the bank may have to use separate statements for mortgages, but may find a way to effectively combine them without going astray of the 1026.41 standards.

Thanks, Ben.

I think the timing requirements of the mortgage periodic statement would make it diffucult to combine with that of other accounts unless the cut-off date of the combined statement was tied to the billing date of the loan. The part in the timing about being "reasonably prompt" after the end of the late charge courtesy period (if applicable) doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.

Just to clarify rlcarey's answer to jlroberts. If it is currently bank policy to not provide a mortgage statement because the customer is enrolled in automatic payments (fixed rate loans only), and this policy continued into 2014 and beyond, this bank would be out of compliance?

Comment 1026.41(a)-4. Opting out. A consumer may not opt out of receiving periodic statements altogether. However, consumers who have demonstrated the ability to access statements online may opt out of receiving notifications that statements are available. Such an ability may be demonstrated, for example, by the consumer receiving notification that the statements is available, going to the website where the information is available, viewing the information about their account and selecting a link or option there to indicate they no longer would like to receive notifications when new statements are available.

Another question regarding statements: For those customers who currently use ACH and do not receive a statement, how much transaction activity will we need to include when we begin producing statements for them? Is it sufficient to include the activity from the last billing cycle or do we need to include transactions since the last statement (which could be years ago)? Or, can we start fresh as of the effective date and include all future activity?