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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and state bank regulators have issued a statement on supervisory practices regarding financial institutions and borrowers affected by Hurricane Harvey. The institutions are encouraged to recognize the serious impact of Hurricane Harvey on the customers and operations of many financial institutions. The agencies will provide regulatory assistance to affected institutions subject to their supervision.

The OCC has announced it will host two workshops at the Indianapolis Marriott East on September 26–27, for directors of national community banks and federal savings associations.

• The Risk Governance workshop on September 26 combines lectures, discussion, and exercises to provide practical information for directors to effectively measure and manage risks. The workshop also focuses on the OCC’s approach to risk-based supervision and major risks in the financial industry.
• The Credit Risk workshop on September 27 focuses on credit risk within the loan portfolio, such as identifying trends and recognizing problems. The workshop also covers the roles of the board and management, how to stay informed of changes in credit risk, and how to effect change.

The Federal Reserve Board has requested public comment on a proposal for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in cooperation with the Office of Financial Research, to produce three new reference rates based on overnight repurchase agreement (repo) transactions secured by Treasuries. The proposal is issued in response to calls for a new reference rate to replace LIBOR as benchmarks for use in financial transactions. Comments will be accepted for 60 days following publication.

UPDATE: Published at 82 FR 41259 on 8/30/17, with comment deadline of 10/30/17.

An article by the CFPB discusses thing to consider before using a reverse mortgage to delay collecting Social Security and a CFPB report warns that a reverse mortgage can be an expensive way to maximize Social Security benefits.

The FDIC has issued FIL-37-2017 with a series of steps intended to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of West Virginia affected by severe storms.

The CFPB has announced it has finalized a temporary increase in the HMDA HELOC reporting threshold for banks and credit unions, and made a number of clarifications, technical corrections, and minor changes to the HMDA regulation (Regulation C, 12 CFR Part 1003). Under the HMDA rules becoming effective on January 1, 2018, financial institutions would have been required to report HELOCs if they made 100 such loans in each of the previous two years. The threshold is temporarily being increased to 500 loans during 2018 and 2019 to give the Bureau time to consider whether to make a permanent adjustment. This change was proposed in mid-July (see our earlier Top Story).

The other amendments finalized by the Bureau include clarifying certain key terms, such as “temporary financing” and “automated underwriting system.” The changes will also, for example, establish transition rules for reporting certain loans purchased by financial institutions. Another change will facilitate reporting the census tract of a property, using a geocoding tool that will be provided on the Bureau’s website. These changes were initially proposed in April 2017.

• Final rule
• Updated Filing Instructions Guide for data collected in 2017
• Updated Filing Instructions Guide for data collected in or after 2018
• Updated HMDA Loan Scenarios
• Executive Summary of the August 24, 2017, changes
• UPDATE: Published 9/13/2017 at 82 FR 43088

HUD and the Census Bureau have released July 2017 statistics on new residential sales.

• New home sales—Sales of new single-family houses in July 2017 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 571,000, according to estimates released by the agencies. This is 9.4 percent below the revised June rate of 630,000, and is 8.9 percent below the July 2016 estimate of 627,000.
• Sales price—The median sales price of new houses sold in July 2017 was $313,700. The average sales price was $371,200.
• For sale inventory—The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of July was 276,000. This represents a supply of 5.8 months at the current sales rate.

FDIC FIL-35-2017, issued Wednesday, announced steps intended to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Michigan affected by severe storms June 22–June 27, 2017.

The CFPB announced on Wednesday it has taken action against two American Express banking subsidiaries for discriminating against consumers in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other U.S. territories by providing them with credit and charge card terms that were inferior to those available in the 50 states and for discriminating against certain consumers with Spanish-language preferences. American Express has paid about $95 million in redress to approximately 222,000 consumers during the reviews undertaken by the Bureau and American Express, and the Bureau is now ordering the company to pay at least another $1 million to complete the compensation of harmed consumers.

American Express self-reported differences between its cards issued to consumers in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Northern Mariana Islands, and its cards offered in the 50 U.S. states, as well as differences with respect to certain consumers with a Spanish language preference. The Bureau did not find that American Express intentionally discriminated against its customers, but rather found that the differences resulted from the company's card management structure, which involved different business units overseeing the U.S. cards and cards issued in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

No civil money penalties were imposed in the Bureau's order because American Express self-reported the violations, self-initiated remediation for harmed consumers, and fully cooperated with the Bureau's review and investigation.

• Consent order in the Matter of American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB.

The CFPB has posted an article announcing the release of new FFIEC Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Examiner Transaction Testing Guidelines for institutions that report HMDA data. The Guidelines will apply to the examination of HMDA data collected beginning in 2018 and reported beginning in 2019. According to the Bureau's article, the Guidelines "represent a joint effort by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to provide—for the first time—uniform guidelines across all federal HMDA supervisory agencies."