Top Story Lending Related

The FDIC has issued FIL-66-2024 with steps intended to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Illinois affected by severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and flooding from July 13 to July 16, 2024. Cook, Fulton, Henry, St. Clair, Washington, Will and Winnebago Counties are currently included as affected areas. That list may change. Check FEMA's website at https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4819/designated-areas for any updates.

The FDIC also issued FIL-67-2024 to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Connecticut — including Fairfield, Litchfield, and New Haven Counties — affected by a severe storm, flooding, landslides, and mudslides on August 18 and 19, 2024. Any updates to that list of counties will be posted to FEMA’s website at https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4820/designated-areas.

The CFPB has released its Office of Servicemembers Affairs’ annual report, which covers the top financial concerns facing servicemembers, veterans, and military families, based on the complaints they submitted to the CFPB. Servicemembers told the CFPB about issues they were having when trying to contact or get help from their federal student loan servicer. The report also highlights other areas of concern in student lending such as transcript withholding and fraud and scams.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has released its first quarter 2024 Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report. The report shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 52,154 foreclosure prevention actions during the quarter, raising the total number of homeowners who have been helped to 6,957,884 since the start of conservatorships in September 2008.

The report also shows that 29 percent of loan modifications completed in the first quarter reduced borrowers’ monthly payments by more than 20 percent. The number of refinances decreased from 71,378 in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 69,878 in the first quarter of 2024.

The Enterprises’ serious delinquency rate declined from 0.55 percent at the end of the fourth quarter of 2023 to 0.51 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2024. This compares with 3.18 percent for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, 2.01 percent for Veterans Affairs (VA) loans, and 1.44 percent for all loans (industry average).

The data included in the quarterly reports are also available on the FHFA’s website as an interactive Borrower Assistance Map.

The CFPB has posted the 2025 version of its HMDA Filing Instruction Guide (FIG), a compendium of resources to help lenders file annual HMDA data collected in 2025 with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) in 2026.

The Bureau also released the Online Supplemental Guide for Quarterly Filers for 2025, which includes 2025 calendar year quarterly deadlines. This guide will help financial institutions that are required to file HMDA data on a quarterly basis.

The Online 2025 Filing Instructions Guide and the Supplemental Guide for Quarterly Filers for 2025 can also be accessed at https://ffiec.cfpb.gov under Guides for HMDA Filers.

FDIC FIL-65-2024, issued Friday, provides guidance to financial institutions and facilitates recovery in areas of Louisiana — currently listing Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary and Terrebonne Parishes — affected by Hurricane Francine from September 9–12, 2024.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced the approval of a Conciliation Agreement with OceanFirst Bank, headquartered in Toms River, New Jersey. The Agreement resolves a complaint against OceanFirst alleging that the bank engaged in redlining by restricting access to credit and mortgage lending services in majority-Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in the New Brunswick, New Jersey area.

HUD's complaint alleges that, from 2018 through at least 2022, OceanFirst failed to provide mortgage lending services to predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties. Specifically, the complaint alleges states that OceanFirst acquired and subsequently closed branches and loan production offices in these neighborhoods, which, coupled with its insufficient marketing efforts and fair lending policies, led to OceanFirst failing to serve the needs of these neighborhoods.

Under the terms of the Agreement, OceanFirst will:

• Invest at least $14 million in a loan subsidy fund with the goal of increasing access to credit for home mortgage loans, home improvement loans, and home refinance loans in majority-Black, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods in the New Brunswick area
• Spend at least $400,000 on professional services for residents in these neighborhoods to increase access to residential mortgage credit and serve the credit needs of those communities through partnerships with one or more community-based or governmental organizations that provide services related to credit, financial education, homeownership, and/or foreclosure prevention
• Spend at least $140,000 each year of the Agreement ($700,000 total) on advertising, outreach, consumer financial education, and credit counseling in these neighborhoods
• Maintain a full-service branch opened in December 2023 and open a loan production office (LPO) located in these neighborhoods. The LPO will include a community room to accommodate financial education classes that OceanFirst will make available to the public and to community organizations and include an ATM that will not charge fees to OceanFirst’s customers and maintain lower fees for non-customers than what is available at nearby ATMs
• Assign or hire at least two full-time loan officers to solicit mortgage applications primarily in majority-Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in the New Brunswick area
• Hire or designate a full-time position of Director of Community Lending
• Provide at least four outreach programs per year for real estate brokers and agents, developers, and public or private entities engaged in residential real estate-related business in these neighborhoods to inform these stakeholders of OceanFirst’s products and services
• Provide at least six consumer education seminars per year targeted and marketed toward residents of neighborhoods of color in the New Brunswick area to cover credit counseling, financial literacy, or other related consumer financial education
• Comply with HUD’s Guidance on Application of the Fair Housing Act to the Advertising of Housing, Credit, and Other Real Estate-Related Transactions through Digital Platforms for all OceanFirst’s advertising and targeting.

OceanFirst agreed to resolve the complaint voluntarily and HUD issued no findings related to the complaint’s allegations.

The CFPB has released Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) guidance on Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) products. The FAQs provide guidance on applying Regulation Z to BNPL products, such as how to apply credit card periodic statement requirements to Pay-in-Four BNPL products that are accessed by digital user accounts.

The FAQs can also be downloaded as a PDF document.

The Federal Reserve Board has released the Federal Open Market Committee statement following the committee's meeting of September 17–18, 2024.

In light of the progress on inflation and the balance of risks, the Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage point to 4-3/4 to 5 percent. In considering additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. The Committee will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage‑backed securities. The Committee is strongly committed to supporting maximum employment and returning inflation to its 2 percent objective.

In its Implementation Note issued with the committee's statement, it is reported that the Board of Governors voted unanimously to lower the interest rate paid on reserve balances to 4.9 percent, effective September 19, 2024, and that the Board also voted unanimously to approve a 1/2 percentage point decrease in the primary credit rate to 5 percent, effective September 19, 2024.

The Board and FOMC also released the economic projections from the FOMC meeting.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has reported the performance of first-lien mortgages in the federal banking system during the second quarter of 2024.

The OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, Second Quarter 2024 showed that 97.3 percent of mortgages included in the report were current and performing at the end of the quarter, a decrease from the 97.4 percent in first quarter 2024, and unchanged from the 97.3 percent a year ago.

The percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages—mortgages that are 60 or more days past due and all mortgages held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments are 30 or more days past due—remained stable from the previous quarter and a year ago.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency yesterday released an interactive tool for tracking data on multifamily mortgages that enables users to review details about loans and properties at both the state and national levels. The tool, known as a data visualization dashboard, provides a more accessible way to view and understand data on multifamily mortgages. It is derived from the Enterprise Multifamily Public Use Database (PUDB) of mortgage acquisitions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises).

The Enterprise Multifamily PUDB Dashboard includes data snapshots of key statistics, time series charts, and state maps of multifamily housing characteristics such as median loan amount, number of properties, average number of units per property, and unit affordability. The underlying aggregate statistics presented in the dashboard come from three multifamily data files in the Enterprise PUDB, updated annually since 2008, including two property-level datasets and a data file on the size and affordability of individual units. The dashboard shows characteristics about multifamily loan, property, and unit characteristics at the national level and loan and property characteristics at the state level.