Top Story Lending Related

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee have released the minutes of the Committee meeting held on March 15–16, 2016. Minutes of past meetings can be viewed on the Board's website.

The NCUA's “Hot Topics in Compliance” webinar will begin at 2 p.m. ET on April 27. The free 90-minute presentation, which includes a thirty minute Q&A, will provide an in-depth review of the latest requirements for compliance, including:

• An overview of the BSA, with discussion of requirements and common violations;
• Monitoring of money laundering;
• Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs);
• Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) adverse action notice requirements; and
• Office of Consumer Protection contact information.

The Federal Trade Commission has returned money to consumers who were harmed by a scam that collected millions in phantom payday loans and another involving mortgage relief services. Checks totaling more than $596,000 were mailed to consumers who lost money to a fraudulent debt collection scheme that processed payments for payday loan debts they did not owe. Additional checks totaling more than $33,000 were mailed to consumers who lost money to a scheme that charged homeowners an up-front fee for mortgage relief services that were promised but never provided.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has released a list of 23 national banks and federal savings associations whose Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations became public in March 2016. Of the institutions listed, five received outstanding ratings. The others were rated satisfactory.

The FDIC has released a list of 57 state nonmember banks recently evaluated for compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The list covers ratings assigned to institutions in January 2016. There were six institutions that earned an "Outstanding" rating. The other 51 banks received "Satisfactory" evaluations.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published a notice in today's Federal; Register of the expiration of the suspension of Regulation Z requirements that credit card issuers submit their currently-offered credit card agreements to the Bureau for posting on the Bureau's website. The next submission is due on the first business day on or after April 30, 2016 (i.e., May 2, 2016). Instructions for completing this requirement have been greatly simplified during the suspension of submissions. Instructions can be found on the Bureau's website (see also our April 1, 2016, Top Story).

The Federal Reserve Board has posted the G.5 Foreign Exchange Rates data for March 2016, and its 2016 Annual Revision of G.17 Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization data.

The Housing and Urban Development Department has kicked off Fair Housing Month 2016 with the launch of a new national media campaign that helps the public envision what communities with shared opportunity for all might look like. The new campaign is designed to further educate the public about their housing rights and the ideals behind HUD’s new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) initiative. The campaign, which was developed in partnership with the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), will include print public service announcements in various languages, television in English and Spanish, online videos, and social media outreach. The campaign will run throughout 2016, and comes as the nation celebrates the 48th anniversary Fair Housing Act.

The Federal Reserve Board has finalized a rule that will expand the range of assets large banking organizations may use to satisfy regulatory liquidity coverage ratio ("LCR") requirements designed to ensure that these banking organizations have the capacity to meet their liquidity needs during a period of financial stress. The final rule allows investment-grade, U.S. general obligation state and municipal securities to be counted as high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) up to certain levels if they meet the same liquidity criteria that currently apply to corporate debt securities. The limits on the amount of a state's or municipality's securities that could qualify are based on the liquidity characteristics of the securities. The final rule, which will be effective on July 1, 2016, applies only to institutions supervised by the Federal Reserve and subject to the LCR requirement:

• Bank holding companies, certain savings and loan holding companies, and state member banks with $250 billion or more in total consolidated assets or $10 billion or more in on-balance sheet foreign exposure;
• state member banks with $10 billion or more in total consolidated assets that are subsidiaries of the above entities;
• nonbank financial companies designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council for Board supervision, to which the Board has applied the LCR requirement by separate rule or order; and
• bank holding companies and certain savings and loan holding companies with $50 billion or more in total consolidated assets, to which a less stringent LCR applies.

Community banks are not subject to the LCR requirement.
Update: Published 4/11/16, 81 FR 21223

In April 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suspended for one year (see Regulation Z § 1026.58(g)) the § 1026.58(c) requirement for submissions of credit card agreements to the Bureau for posting on the Bureau's website. The next submission is due by May 2, 2016. The CFPB has now issued guidance for credit card issuers with simplified instructions for making the required submissions.