Top Story Lending Related

The CFPB announced yesterday it has filed a complaint in federal court against Freedom Debt Relief, the nation’s largest debt-settlement services provider, and its co-CEO Andrew Housser, for deceiving consumers. The CFPB alleges that Freedom charges consumers without settling their debts as promised, makes customers negotiate their own settlements, misleads them about its fees and the reach of its services, and fails to inform them of their rights to funds they deposited with the company.

Update, 7/9/2019: The CFPB announced 7/9/2019 that it had settled its suit against Freedom Debt Relief. See our Top Story.

The OCC has issued Bulletin 2017-51 as guidance to provide transparency regarding its framework for evaluating certain types of licensing applications when an applicant bank has an overall Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating of “Needs to Improve” or “Substantial Noncompliance” or a less than satisfactory CRA rating in one or more geographic rating areas.

The CFPB has published in the November 9, 2018, Federal Register three final rules increasing various threshold amounts in its regulations, applicable for calendar year 2018.

• The threshold amount at or below which a special appraisal is not required for a higher-priced mortgage loan under § 1026.35(c) of Regulation Z will increase to $26,000.
• The threshold amount for exempt consumer leases under Regulation M will increase to $55,800.
• The threshold amount for exempt consumer credit under Regulation Z that is neither secured by real property or personal property used or expected to be used as a consumer's principal dwelling nor a private education loan will also increase to $55,800.

The changes to the Official Interpretations of Regulations M and Z have been posted to BankersOnline's Regulations pages.

The Federal Reserve has posted G.19 Consumer Credit data for September. Consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5-1/2 percent during the third quarter. Both revolving and nonrevolving credit increased at similar annual rates. In September, consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 6-3/4 percent.

The October 2017 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SCOOS) on Bank Lending Practices has been released by the Federal Reserve. The survey addresses changes in the standards and terms on, and demand for, bank loans to businesses and households over the past three months. Responses were received from 72 domestic banks and 23 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks.

The CFPB has posted tips for service members with student debt.

A Southern California-based auto dealership group will pay $1.4 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated a 2014 administrative order prohibiting it from misrepresenting how much consumers could pay to finance or lease a vehicle.

The CFPB sent out an email Friday announcing the beta launch of its new HMDA Platform, to provide financial institutions an opportunity to become familiar with the HMDA Platform and, in particular, determine whether their sample LAR data complies with the reporting requirements outlined in the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2017. The beta version of the platform will allow financial institutions to establish test log-in credentials; upload sample HMDA files and perform validation on their data; receive edit reports; allow users to confirm their test data submission; and conclude the test HMDA filing process.

The FDIC has released a list of 74 state nonmember banks recently evaluated for compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The list covers evaluation ratings that the FDIC assigned to institutions in August 2017. The list includes eight banks (one each in Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, California and Nevada, and two in New York) that received "outstanding" ratings, and one Texas bank that received a "needs to improve" rating. The other 65 banks received "satisfactory" ratings.

Registration for the 2018 NMLS Annual Conference and Training, February 6–9 in New Orleans, is open. The NMLS has set up a conference website with a schedule at-a-glance, venue information and fee schedule.