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FDIC FIL-14-2016 has been issued to clarify supervisory expectations in existing guidance for institutions' risk-management practices involving decisions to discontinue foreclosure proceedings after initiating such actions, commonly referred to as abandoned foreclosures. Institutions should have appropriate policies and practices pertaining to decisions to discontinue foreclosure actions.

The Federal Trade Coimmission has announced the release of the 2015 Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, the annual summary of consumer complaints received by the Commission. Debt collection, identity theft and imposter scams were the most common categories of consumer complaints.

The OCC has released the ratings received by 14 national banks and federal savings associations recently evaluated for compliance with CRA. Three were rated outstanding and 11 earned satisfactory ratings.

HUD has announced two awards of disaster recovery funds. A total of $142 million will be awarded to Texas communities for disaster recovery efforts following significant flooding in the spring and fall of 2015 and $157 million will be awarded to South Carolina communities for disaster recovery efforts following significant rainfall and flooding in October 2015.

The OCC has issued Bulletin 2016-6 supplementing the 2007 “Interagency Statement on Enforcement of Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Requirements” by providing guidance on the process the regulator has implemented to provide national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies (collectively, banks) with an opportunity to respond to potential noncompliance with Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) compliance program requirements or repeat or uncorrected BSA compliance problems. The bulletin, which applies to all OCC-supervised institutions, rescinds OCC Bulletin 2005-45, “Process for Taking Administrative Enforcement Actions Against Banks Based on BSA Violations,” dated December 23, 2005.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have released their schedules of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) evaluations to be conducted in the second quarter of 2016.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced an agreement with First Federal Bank, FSB, of Kansas City to resolve allegations of redlining against African-American mortgage applicants. HUD and two fair housing organizations claimed the lender’s designated service area effectively excluded African-American neighborhoods, limiting residential mortgage lending to persons based upon their race. As part of the HUD-mediated conciliation agreement, First Federal Bank agreed to provide $75,000 in discounts or subsidies on home purchase loans on owner-occupied properties in majority African-American census tracts in the Kansas City metropolitan area over a three year period. In addition, the bank agreed to originate $2.5 million in mortgage loans in majority African-American neighborhoods over the same period. The bank also agreed to a series of fair lending directed financial commitments:

• $105,000 to support a loan pool that finances the rehabilitation of vacant, blighted homes in distressed areas of Kansas City;
• $50,000 at the rate of at least $15,000 per year for three consecutive years for affirmative marketing and outreach to African-American communities in the Kansas City metropolitan area;
• $30,000 to support financial education specifically targeting majority African-American communities;
• $50,000 directly to the named complainants to support their fair lending and community reinvestment work.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an article, "Our priorities to ensure a fair marketplace," outlining the four types of problems that it tends to focus on that consumers face in the marketplace:

• Deception, or situations where the costs and risks of a financial decision are hidden or unclear;
• Debt traps, or practices that trigger a cycle of debt where consumers rack up substantial costs over time;
• Dead ends, or situations where people cannot simply walk away when they are treated unfairly; and
• Discrimination, or unequal treatment based on characteristics such as race, gender or other factors that the law prohibits.

The article also referred to a fact sheet on the agency's nine priority goals and the plan for achieving them, and its rulemaking agenda and five-year strategic plan.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its fourth quarter 2015 House Price Index (HPI), which reports U.S. house prices rose 1.4 percent. This is the eighteenth consecutive quarterly price increase in the purchase-only, seasonally adjusted index. House prices rose 5.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014 to the fourth quarter of 2015. FHFA's seasonally adjusted monthly index for December was up 0.4 percent from November. The HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to, or guaranteed by, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The January FHFA Index indicates that nationally, interest rates on conventional purchase-money mortgages increased from December to January, according to several indices of new mortgage contracts. The National Average Contract Mortgage Rate for the Purchase of Previously Occupied Homes by Combined Lenders Index was 3.98 percent for loans closed in late January, up 1 basis point. The average interest rate on all mortgage loans was 3.97 percent, also up 1 basis point. The average interest rate on conventional, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages of $417,000 or less was 4.23 percent, up 3 basis points. The effective interest rate on all mortgage loans was 4.10 percent in January, unchanged from December. The effective interest rate accounts for the addition of initial fees and charges over the life of the mortgage. The average loan amount for all loans was $310,400 in January, down $7,600 from $318,000 in December.