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Top Story Lending Related

02/26/2024

FDIC releases January enforcement actions

The FDIC has released a list of 15 orders of administrative enforcement actions taken against banks and individuals in January 2024. The administrative enforcement actions in those 15 orders consisted of six orders to pay civil money penalties, two combined prohibition orders and orders to pay civil money penalties, two prohibition orders, four consent orders, and one order terminating a consent order.

  • Nine orders against individuals who are current or former institution-affiliated parties of Bank of England, England, Arkansas, connected to violations of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act involving misrepresentations of personal and bank affiliations with the Department of Veterans Affairs in the course of taking applications for VA mortgage loans.
    • Assessments of civil money penalties and orders of removal/prohibition were issued to:
      • Ryan Qarana, former branch manager of the Bloomfield, MI, loan production office of the bank, for failing to ensure that loan officers in the Bloomfield, Michigan loan production office complied with Section 5; specifically by misrepresenting or failing to ensure that loan officers did not misrepresent: (1) available loan prices for mortgage loans, (2) that consumers could skip two months of their mortgage payments, and (3) the loan production office’s affiliation with the Department of Veterans Affairs. CMP $100,000.
      • Jasmine Jonna, former sales manager of the Bloomfield loan production office, for misrepresenting available loan prices for mortgage loans, misrepresenting to consumers that they could skip two months of their mortgage payments, and misrepresenting the loan production office’s affiliation with the Department of Veterans Affairs. CMP of $12,000.
    • Civil money penalties were assessed on:
      • Ramy Zoma, for misrepresenting the bank as affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs. CMP $2,500.
      • Janel Zaitona, for luring consumers to apply for mortgage loans with low, unavailable loan prices that would not be honored and subsequently increasing the price before closing the loan, and misrepresenting to consumers that they could skip two months of mortgage payments and by misrepresenting to consumers the Bank’s affiliation with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. CMP $1,000
      • Salam Yaldo, for luring consumers to apply for mortgage loans with low, unavailable loan prices, that would not be honored and subsequently increasing the price before closing the loan; misrepresenting to consumers that they could skip two months of mortgage payments; and misrepresenting to consumers his and the Bank’s affiliation with the Department of Veterans Affairs. CMP $15,000
      • Zach Jabro, for failing, as the branch manager of the office, in certain aspects, to manage, monitor, and oversee the sales operations of the branch. CMP $110,000
      • Maria Abdulnoor, for luring consumers to apply for mortgage loans with low, unavailable loan prices that would not be honored and subsequently increasing the price before closing the loan, and misrepresenting to consumers that they could skip two months of mortgage payments. CMP $35,000.
    • Cease and desist orders were issued to Lamont Kennedy and Oday Sessi.
  • An order to pay a civil money penalty of $2,000 was issued to Collins State Bank, Collins, Wisconsin, for violations of the Flood Disaster Protection Act, National Flood Insurance Act, and Part 339 of the FDIC's Rules and Regulations, by failing to obtain adequate flood insurance at the time of making, increasing, renewing, or extending four (4) loans.
  • Removal/prohibition orders were issued to:
    • Laura Ellen Ellison, formerly a loan operations specialist for CommerceOne Bank, Birmingham, Alabama, for executing nine unauthorized wire transfers from accounts of two bank customers to her personal bank account at another bank, and creating false documentation to make the transfers appear to have been authorized.
    • Bonnie A. Kirkpatrick, formerly employed by First Farmers & Merchants State Bank, Brownsdale, Minnesota, after a finding that she forged withdrawal slips, took various amounts of money from multiple consumer accounts without permission or authority, and removed Bank funds from the cash drawer, all for her own personal gain.
  • Consent orders were issued to First Farmers & Commercial Bank, Pikeville, Tennessee, and Lineage Bank, Franklin, Tennessee
  • A consent order issued in September 2022 to Union Savings Bank, Cincinnati, Ohio, was terminated.

02/23/2024

Bureau publishes proposal to limit OD fees at very large banks

The CFPB has published [89 FR 13852] its previously announced proposed rule on overdraft lending at very large financial institutions in today's Federal Register. Comments are due by April 1, 2024,

02/22/2024

FHA offers new option to help struggling mortgage borrowers

The Federal Housing Administration yesterday announced a new loss mitigation home retention option for borrowers with FHA-insured single family forward mortgages who are behind on their mortgage payments. The new offering, called the Payment Supplement, provides mortgage servicers with an additional tool to temporarily reduce a borrower’s monthly mortgage payment by up to 25 percent without modifying the mortgage’s current interest rate. The Payment Supplement is meant to help those borrowers who cannot sufficiently be assisted by existing FHA home retention solutions because the interest rate on their mortgage is lower than current interest rates.

When implemented, the Payment Supplement will allow mortgage servicers to temporarily reduce a borrower’s mortgage payment by using funds from a Partial Claim which enables the borrower to access up to 30 percent of the outstanding balance of their FHA-insured mortgage. The Partial Claim amount is placed in a junior lien and paid back when the homeowner sells or refinances the home or the mortgage otherwise terminates. Under the Payment Supplement, the Partial Claim funds are used in the following way:

  • First, the Partial Claim is used to pay any arrearages and to bring the borrower’s mortgage payment current.
  • Next, the remaining funds are deposited in an FHA custodial account managed by the mortgage servicer and used to temporarily supplement the principal and interest portion of a borrower’s mortgage payment each month, with a target of up to a 25 percent reduction in monthly principal and interest payments.

The Payment Supplement option is available to all borrowers who have not already exhausted their Partial Claim allowance through previous loss mitigation actions.

Mortgage servicers may begin implementing Payment Supplement on May 1, 2024, but must implement the solution for all eligible borrowers by January 1, 2025.

In addition to the publication of the Payment Supplement policy, FHA also announced yesterday that it is extending its full suite of temporary loss mitigation options through April 30, 2025.

02/20/2024

Court bans and fines mortgage relief scam operators

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday announced that a federal court has issued an order banning the operators of the Home Matters USA mortgage relief scam from the telemarketing and debt relief businesses and requiring them to turn over $19 million as a result of a lawsuit by the Commission and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).

The FTC and DFPI sued companies doing business as Home Matters USA, Academy Home Services, Atlantic Pacific Service Group, and Golden Home Services America and the owners of the companies, Michael R. Nabati, Armando Solis Barron, Dominic Ahiga (also known as Michael D. Grinnell), and Roger S. Dyer in September 2022, charging them with taking millions of dollars from thousands of struggling homeowners seeking mortgage relief.

The court found that the defendants falsely promised to reduce homeowners’ mortgage payments and prevent foreclosures, defrauding distressed homeowners out of millions of dollars. The scheme harmed more than 3,000 people nationwide, particularly elders and veterans.

02/20/2024

Agencies issue Shared National Credit Program report

The Federal Reserve Board, OCC, and FDIC on February 16 reported in the 2023 Shared National Credit (SNC) Report that credit quality associated with large, syndicated bank loans remains moderate. However, the agencies noted declining credit quality trends due to the pressure of higher interest rates on leveraged borrowers and compressed operating margins in some industry sectors.

Risks in leveraged loans remain high, and risks in certain industries, including technology, telecom and media; health care and pharmaceuticals; and transportation services are also elevated. Risk in the real estate and construction sector is segmented, with deteriorating trends in some sub-sectors being offset by stability and/or improvement in other sub-sectors. Industries affected by the pandemic, including transportation services and entertainment/recreation, continue to show notable improvement.

The 2023 review reflects the examination of SNC loans originated on or before June 30, 2023. The review focused on leveraged loans and stressed borrowers from various industry sectors.

02/16/2024

CFPB: Large banks charge higher credit card rates than small institutions

The CFPB has announced its release of a report based on the first set of results from the newly updated Terms of Credit Card Plans survey. The survey data reveal that large banks are offering worse credit card terms and interest rates than small banks and credit unions, regardless of credit risk. In fact, reports the Bureau, the 25 largest credit card issuers charged customers interest rates of 8 to 10 points higher than small- and medium-sized banks and credit unions. This difference can translate to $400 to $500 in additional annual interest for the average cardholder.

The survey data include information on all general-purpose credit cards of the largest 25 credit card issuers in the United States. The data also include a representative sample of products from small- and medium-sized banks and credit unions across the country.

02/16/2024

Agencies release Dodd-Frank Act stress test scenarios for 2024

The OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve Board have released the hypothetical scenarios for their annual Dodd-Frank stress tests, which help ensure that large banks can lend to households and businesses even in a severe recession.

02/16/2024

OCC enforcement actions for February 2024

The OCC has released its February 2024 list of enforcement actions taken against national banks and federal savings associations and related individuals.

  • The previously announced cease and desist order, order for civil money penalty, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley agreement issued to City National Bank, Los Angeles, California.
  • A cease and desist order against Blue Ridge Bank, N.A., Martinsville, Virginia, for unsafe or unsound practices, including those related to BSA/AML, capital ratios, capital and strategic planning, liquidity risk management, and information technology controls. The deficiencies in the BSA/AML compliance program resulted in violations of law, rule, or regulation, and the bank also failed to correct previously reported BSA problems.
  • A formal agreement with The First National Bank of St. Ignace, St. Ignace, Michigan, for unsafe or unsound practices, including those related to capital planning, capital stress testing, and strategic planning, and a violation of law, rule, or regulation related to payment of dividends.
  • An order of prohibition and for payment of a $50,000 civil money penalty against Stephen Adams, former senior vice president and managing director of residential lending, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield Michigan, for his role in failing to appropriately supervise, investigate, and discipline employees originating residential mortgage loans.
  • Orders of prohibition issued to—
    • Cole R. Mann, former branch manager, PNC Bank, National Association, Wilmington, Delaware, for stealing, embezzling, or otherwise misappropriating funds from the bank and a bank customer
    • Chimere Shanta Mitchell, former fraud and claims operations specialist at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for misappropriating confidential information of bank customers, including more than 20 elderly customers, and selling the information to a third party, resulting in fraudulent transactions
    • Aaron Parsons, relationship banker and Webster Bank N.A., Stamford, Connecticut, for unauthorized withdrawals from accounts of bank customers, four of whom are elderly, and depositing the funds in his own bank account
    • Nyema'sha Taylor, former teller at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for knowingly processing unauthorized cash withdrawals from a customer’s account
    • Francis Andujar Velazquez, former senior customer service representative, Santander Bank, Wilmington, Delaware, for misappropriating funds from customers’ accounts by making purchases using confidential bank customer information and selling confidential information of bank customers to a third party and facilitating fraudulent transactions
    • Mirsha Yamili Wilson, former associate Banker, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Columbus, Ohio, for taking cash used to supply a bank branch’s ATMs and concealing the shortage
  • Personal cease and desist orders against—
    • Colleen Kimmel, former general counsel, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield, Michigan, for her role in not ensuring the bank conducted or suggesting to the Board that the bank conduct an investigation into concerns related to a residential mortgage loan product, not ensuring the bank’s BSA program had an adequate system of internal controls, and not timely reporting suspicious activity related to certain residential mortgage loans
    • Jonathan Kolk, former residential underwriting manager, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield, Michigan, for capitulating to pressure to quickly underwrite certain residential mortgage loans and his role in underwriting, and supervising the underwriting of, loans that had false or fraudulent loan applications

02/15/2024

Merchant cash advance operator to pay $20.3M

The Federal Trade Commission has announced a federal court has entered a judgment requiring merchant cash advance operator Jonathan Braun to pay $20.3 million in monetary relief and civil penalties. This is the first trial by jury that the FTC has ever conducted.

The judgment follows a January trial in which a jury found that Braun, in his role with small-business funding company RCG Advances, which formerly did business as Richmond Capital Group, knowingly violated the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act by deceiving small businesses about the amount of funding that Defendants would provide to and collect from them. The court entered a judgment of $3,421,067 to redress the harm that Braun’s misconduct caused to small businesses. In addition, noting the utter disregard and contempt that Braun showed to consumers, including spewing vile threats and profanities to small business owners, the court imposed $16,956,000 in civil penalties for Braun’s violations of law.

The FTC sued Braun in June 2020, along with four other defendants, charging that he deceived small businesses and other organizations by misrepresenting the terms of merchant cash advances his business provided, and then used unfair collection practices, including sometimes threatening physical violence, to compel consumers to pay.

02/15/2024

Annual review of NMLS fees underway

The Conference of State Banking Supervisors yesterday announced that an annual review of NMLS fees has begun. The fees are reviewed annually to determine if the fee structure is properly aligned with the costs of efficiently operating NMLS for the 600,000 industry users who rely on the system to maintain their licensing or registration. The fee review process will continue throughout 2024. Any changes to NMLS fees will take effect in 2025.

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