Top Story Lending Related

The FDIC has issued FIL-62-2023 with guidance to help financiaol institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Illinois affected by severe storms and flooding from September 17–18, 2023.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) this morning announced it has published a toolkit for financial authorities and financial institutions for their third-party risk management and oversight.

The toolkit was developed in response to concerns over the extent and nature of financial institutions’ interactions with a broad and diverse ecosystem of third-party service providers, which could have implications for financial stability.

The primary emphasis of the toolkit is on critical third-party services, given the potential impact of their disruption on financial institutions’ critical operations and financial stability. It also looks holistically at financial institutions’ third-party risk management in light of changing industry practices and recent regulatory and supervisory approaches to operational resilience.

The toolkit, which incorporates feedback from a public consultation conducted over the summer, aims to (i) reduce fragmentation in regulatory and supervisory approaches to third-party risk management across jurisdictions and different areas of the financial services sector; (ii) strengthen financial institutions’ ability to manage third-party risks and financial authorities’ ability to monitor and strengthen the resilience of the financial system; and (iii) facilitate coordination among relevant stakeholders (i.e. financial authorities, financial institutions and third-party service providers).

The FSB promotes international financial stability by coordinating national financial authorities and international standard-setting bodies as they work toward developing strong regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies. It fosters a level playing field by encouraging coherent implementation of these policies across sectors and jurisdictions. Working through its members, it seeks to strengthen financial systems and increase the stability of international financial markets. The policies developed in the pursuit of this agenda are implemented by jurisdictions and national authorities.

The FDIC has issued the lists of institutions scheduled for a Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) examination during the first quarter 2024 and second quarter 2024.

The OCC also released its schedule of CRA evaluations to be conducted in the first and second quarters of 2024.

The Federal Reserve System posts CRA examination schedules on its website.

The Federal Housing Administration has announced proposed changes to its 203(k) Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance Program.

The changes would:

• Increase the Limited 203(k) total rehabilitation costs limits
• Extend the rehabilitation period for both the Standard 203(k) and the Limited 203(k) types
• Revise the 203(k) consultant fee schedule

Comments on the FHA's proposal will be accepted through January 5, 2024.

The Federal Housing Administration has announced new loan limits for calendar year 2024 for its Single Family Title II forward and Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) insurance programs. Loan limits for most of the country will increase in the coming year due to continued strong home price appreciation over the past year.

For a complete list of FHA loan limits, areas at the FHA ceiling, and areas between the floor and the ceiling, visit the FHA's Loan Limits Page. FHA lenders can refer to Mortgagee Letters 2023-21 and 2023-22 for more details.

The Federal Reserve Board has released the minutes of its discount rate meetings from October 23 through November 1, 2023.

The CFPB has announced it has ordered Bank of America, N.A. to pay a $12 million civil money penalty for submitting false mortgage lending information to the federal government under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. For at least four years, hundreds of Bank of America loan officers failed to ask mortgage applicants certain demographic questions as required under federal law, and then falsely reported that the applicants had chosen not to respond.

The CFPB’s review of Bank of America’s HMDA data collection practices found that the bank was submitting false data, including falsely reporting that mortgage applicants were declining to answer demographic questions. This conduct violated HMDA and its implementing regulation, Regulation C, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Act, when the bank:

• Falsely reported that applicants declined to provide information: Hundreds of Bank of America loan officers reported that 100% of mortgage applicants chose not to provide their demographic data over at least a three month period. In fact, these loan officers were not asking applicants for demographic data, but instead were falsely recording that the applicants chose not to provide the information.
• Failed to adequately oversee accurate data collection: Bank of America did not ensure that its mortgage loan officers accurately collected and reported the demographic data required under HMDA. For example, the bank identified that many loan officers receiving applications by phone were failing to collect the required data as early as 2013, but the bank turned a blind eye for years despite knowledge of the problem.

For additional information on the Bureau's action against Bank of America and a link to the Consent Order, see “Bank of America pays $12 million for filing false HMDA data” in the BankersOnline Penalty pages.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday announced the conforming loan limit values (CLLs) for mortgages Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) will acquire in 2024. In most of the United States, the 2024 CLL value for one-unit properties will be $766,550, an increase of $40,350 from 2023.

For areas in which 115 percent of the local median home value exceeds the baseline conforming loan limit value, the applicable loan limit will be higher than the baseline loan limit. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) establishes the high-cost area limit in those areas as a multiple of the area median home value, while setting the ceiling at 150 percent of the baseline limit. Median home values generally increased in high-cost areas in 2023, which increased their CLL values. The new ceiling loan limit for one-unit properties will be $1,149,825, which is 150 percent of $766,550.

Special statutory provisions establish different loan limits for Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In these areas, the baseline loan limits will be $1,149,825 for one-unit properties.

Due to rising home values, the CLL values will be higher in all but five U.S. counties or county equivalents.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has announced that U.S. house prices rose 5.5 percent between the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023, according to the FHFA House Price Index. House prices were up 2.1 percent compared to the second quarter of 2023. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for September was up 0.6 percent from August.

“U.S. house price growth continued to accelerate in the third quarter, appreciating more than in each of the previous four quarters,” said Dr. Anju Vajja, Principal Associate Director in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “House prices rose in the third quarter in all census divisions and are higher than one year ago, driven primarily by a low supply of homes for sale.”

The FDIC has released a list of enforcement actions taken in October 2023. Included were three consent orders to pay civil money penalties, three consent orders to cease and desist, and two removal/prohibition orders :

• Transportation Alliance Bank (DBA TAB Bank), Ogden, Utah, was ordered to pay a civil money penalty of $315,000 for deceptive practices involving a "rebate processing fee" for early payment of certain loans.
• Paramount Bank, Hazelwood, Missouri, was assessed an $85,000 penalty for reporting inaccurate HMDA data for 2020 and 2021.
• Range Bank, Marquette, Michigan, was assessed a $4,000 civil money penalty for failing to require escrow of flood insurance premium payments on four loans on which the bank collected escrow payments for taxes and homeowner's insurance premiums.
• Herring Bank, Amarillo, Texas, was issued a cease and desist order (jointly issued with the Texas Department of Banking) due in part to weaknesses in access controls for IT and in its corporate bond accounting software.
• Royal Business Bank, Los Angeles, California, was issued a cease and desist order (issued jointly with the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation) related to the bank's Bank Secrecy Act/Anti Money Laundering Compliance Program.
• TrustTexas Bank, SSB, Cuero, Texas, received a cease and desist order, issued jointly with the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending, for allegedly unsafe or unsound banking practices relating to interest rate risk exposure, deterioration in capital protection and earnings, and deficiencies in management and oversight by the Board.
• Brian Ferris, a former loan officer of Berkshire Bank, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, received a corrected order of prohibition relating to his alleged participation in a conspiracy to defraud the bank by submitting fraudulent loan applications to the bank that were referred to him by two co-conspirators who operated a loan brokerage business.
• Patricia Westmoreland, a former bank manager for Branch Banking and Trust Company, now known as Truist Bank, Charlotte, North Carolina, received an order of prohibition for allegedly embezzling approximately $201,000 and falsifying bank records.