Top Story Compliance Related

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has published a notice in this morning's Federal Register seeking nominations from the public for membership on the FinCEN Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group. New members will be selected for three-year membership terms. Nominations will be accepted through January 27, 2017.

HUD has announced awards totaling $32 million to public housing authorities, public housing resident associations, Native American tribes, and non-profit organizations to hire or retain service coordinators who help public housing residents find jobs, educational opportunities, and achieve economic and housing independence.

The NMLS has posted a notice that it will extend its operating hours on Saturday, December 31, 2016, from 8:00 p.m. ET to Sunday, January 1, 2017, at 12:00 a.m. (midnight) ET. The system will be unavailable on January 1, 2017, and will re-open at 7:00 a.m. ET on Monday, January 2nd. December 31 is the last day of the annual two-month-long renewal window for mortgage loan originator registrations.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eighteen individuals and five entities in response to the continued acts of violence committed by the Government of Syria, led by Bashar al-Assad, against its own citizens. The designated individuals and entities have provided support or services to the Government of Syria, acted as senior officials of the Government of Syria, supported designated individuals and entities, or aided Syria’s weapons of mass destruction program. As a result of today’s action, any property or interests in property of the designated persons in the possession or control of U.S. persons or within the United States must be blocked. Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons involving the designated persons are generally prohibited. For additional information, see our OFAC Update for December 23.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced that defendants who operated a Florida-based tech support scheme that the Federal Trade Commission and State of Florida charged deceived thousands of consumers, will pay $10 million for consumer redress to settle the action. According to the complaint, defendant Inbound Call Experts, doing business as Advanced Tech Support along with other defendants, used high-pressure sales pitches to telemarket tech support products and services falsely claiming to find viruses and malware on consumers’ computers. The stipulated final court order prohibits the defendants from misrepresenting that they have identified performance or security issues on consumers’ computers and from making any other misrepresentations while selling a product or service.

The FDIC has issued FIL-81-2016 seeking comment on Applying for Deposit Insurance – A Handbook for Organizers of De Novo Institutions. The handbook provides an overview of the business considerations and statutory requirements that de novo organizers will face as they work to establish a new depository institution and apply for deposit insurance. It offers guidance for navigating three phases of establishing an insured institution—pre-filing activities, the application process, and pre-opening activities. Comments will be accepted via email to handbookcomments@fdic.gov. through February 20, 2017.

The FHFA has released the October 2016 House Price Index (HPI), which indicates U.S. house prices were up 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from September 2016. The FHFA monthly HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From October 2015 to October 2016, house prices were up 6.2 percent. For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from September 2016 to October 2016 ranged from -0.6 percent in the East South Central division to +1.2 percent in the Mountain division. The 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +3.6 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to +8.3 percent in the Mountain division.

The FHFA also released its third quarter 2016 Foreclosure Prevention Report. The serious delinquency rate for mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) has reached the lowest level since June of 2008. The Enterprises' serious delinquency rate fell to 1.16 percent at the end of the third quarter of this year. Overall, the Enterprises completed 46,390 foreclosure prevention actions in the third quarter. The report also includes data on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home retention actions, delinquency data and real estate owned (REO) inventory. FHFA publishes the report data in an online, interactive Borrower Assistance Map.

OFAC has amended the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations to expand the scope of medical devices and agricultural commodities generally authorized for export or re-export to Iran pursuant to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, as amended. This amendment also includes new or expanded authorizations related to training, replacement parts, software and services for the operation, maintenance, and repair of medical devices, and items that are broken or connected to product recalls or other safety concerns. Additionally, this amendment revises the definition of the terms “goods of Iranian origin” and “Iranian-origin goods.” For more on this story, read our OFAC Update.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced approval of an agreement between the owners and managers of Maycliff Mobile Home Park in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a family to resolve allegations that the landlords refused to allow an elderly woman’s son and his pregnant wife to live at the property after their child was born. Two additional agreements were also announced between the owners and managers of Plainview Mobile Home Park in Casper, Wyoming, and two families who complained they were unlawfully denied the reasonable modifications they needed.

The CFPB has published final rules amending threshold amounts in Regulations C (HMDA) and Z (TILA). The Regulation C amendment leaves the asset-size exemption threshold unchanged at $44 million. The Regulation Z amendment makes a change, effective January 1, 2017, in the asset-size threshold for certain creditors to qualify for an exemption to the requirement to establish an escrow account for a higher-priced mortgage loan based on the annual percentage change in the average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the 12-month period ending in November. The exemption threshold is adjusted to increase to $2.069 billion from $2.052 billion. Therefore, creditors with assets of less than $2.069 billion (including assets of certain affiliates) as of December 31, 2016, are exempt, if other requirements of Regulation Z also are met, from establishing escrow accounts for higher-priced mortgage loans in 2017. This asset limit will also apply during a grace period, in certain circumstances, with respect to transactions with applications received before April 1 of 2018. The adjustment to the escrows exemption asset-size threshold will also increase a similar threshold for small-creditor portfolio and balloon-payment qualified mortgages.

The amendments to Regulations C and Z have been posted to BankersOnline's Regulations pages.