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Federal Reserve Financial Services has announced the update of the Deposit Visual Reference Guide [PDF; HTML] to conform to the January 4, 2016, amendments to FRB Operating Circular 2 and the Cash Services Manual of Procedures.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Lew has authored an article, "Foreign Affairs: America and the Global Economy: The Case for U.S. Leadership," appearing in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. The article underscores how U.S. leadership of the global economic system has produced remarkable economic successes over the past 70-plus years, and why sustaining that economic leadership and adapting it to the challenges of our time are critical to future U.S. and global stability and prosperity. The Secretary also delivered remarks on the topic at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The OCC will host two workshops in Corpus Christi, Texas, at the Omni Corpus Christi Hotel, May 17-18, including its first workshop on operational risk. The Credit Risk workshop on May 17 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 Operational Risk workshop on May 18 focuses on the key components of operational risk—people, processes and systems. The session also covers governance, third-party risk, vendor management, and cybersecurity.

The NCUA has reported that, with the completion of a settlement with Goldman Sachs, the regulator will have recovered more than $3 billion from Wall Street firms that sold faulty mortgage-backed securities to five corporate credit unions (CCUs). The NCUA joined the Department of Justice and other governmental plaintiffs in a $5 billion settlement that includes $575 million to settle NCUA’s claims against Goldman Sachs. The settlement resolves two lawsuits filed by NCUA as liquidating agent for three CCUs, U.S. Central, WesCorp and Southwest, against the firm for losses incurred as a result of the purchases of the faulty securities by the CCUs, which later failed.

The United Nations and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will hold an open briefing on April 14, 2016, on "#StopTerrorFinance: Countering the financing of terrorism and depriving terrorist groups, particularly Al-Qaida, ISIL (Da'esh) and their affiliates, from their sources of funding." The briefing, which will be webcast live at http://webtv.un.org, provides an opportunity for the two UN Committees, UN Members and FATF to discuss new and emerging terrorist financing trends, and to highlight initiatives, including those with the private sector, to help countries enhance their information sharing and strengthen global efforts to prevent and counter terrorism financing.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that the United States has settled civil mortgage fraud claims against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (Wells Fargo) and Wells Fargo executive Kurt Lofrano, stemming from Wells Fargo’s participation in the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Direct Endorsement Lender Program. In the settlement, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $1.2 billion and admitted, acknowledged and accepted responsibility for, among other things, certifying to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), during the period from May 2001 through December 2008, that certain residential home mortgage loans were eligible for FHA insurance when in fact they were not. See "Wells Fargo settles with DOJ for mortgage lending practices" in our Penalties pages for additional information.

The Federal Reserve has released the February 1-5, 2016, E.2 survey of terms of business lending.

The FDIC has announced its activities for the April National Financial Capability Month featuring educational opportunities for both adults and young people to build their financial knowledge and skills to achieve brighter financial futures. Two webinars will provide an overview FDIC educational resources:

• Recursos en español de la FDIC (FDIC Resources in Spanish), April 12, 2016, 3:00–4:30 pm. EDT
• Money Smart Product Family and Implementation Examples, April 20, 2016, 1:00–3:30 pm. EDT

The CFPB Blog explains that while many consumers submit complaints to the regulator online, they can talk to a real person in more than 180 languages by calling Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. ET a toll-free telephone number, (855) 411-CFPB (2372). Services to consumers who are deaf, have hearing loss, or have speech disabilities are also available through a TTY/TDD number: (855) 729-CFPB (2372). The Bureau suggests before a consumer makes a call or online contact they have information available about the product or service they are complaining about, prepare a statement of what happened, know the name of the company that is the subject of the complaint, and provide the consumer’s contact information for a response.

The FDIC has announced it has rescinded FIL 50-2009, "Enhanced Supervisory Procedures for Newly Insured FDIC-Supervised Depository Institutions." The 2009 policy, among other measures, extended the de novo period for newly organized, state nonmember institutions from three to seven years for examinations, capital maintenance, and other requirements. It was issued against the backdrop of an elevated number of newly insured institutions that had either failed or had been identified as problem banks during the financial crisis. Since the issuance of the guidance, the FDIC has adopted regulations and guidance that apply to all supervised institutions to strengthen their resiliency and risk-management practices. The FDIC has also enhanced its programs and procedures through a more forward-looking approach to supervision. The agency has determined that the extended-period de novo treatment is no longer needed.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's FIL-24-2016, issued April 6, is a supplement to its November 2014 guidance related to the Statement of Policy on Applications for Deposit Insurance. The guidance is in a question-and-answer format to aid applicants who are developing proposals for deposit insurance. The supplemental questions and answers focus on the development of business plans.

Today's public meeting of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Community Banking, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. EDT at the FDIC Building in Washington, DC, will be webcast live. The agenda and the link to the webcast

The Federal Trade Commission has returned money to consumers who were harmed by a scam that collected millions in phantom payday loans and another involving mortgage relief services. Checks totaling more than $596,000 were mailed to consumers who lost money to a fraudulent debt collection scheme that processed payments for payday loan debts they did not owe. Additional checks totaling more than $33,000 were mailed to consumers who lost money to a scheme that charged homeowners an up-front fee for mortgage relief services that were promised but never provided.

The NCUA's “Hot Topics in Compliance” webinar will begin at 2 p.m. ET on April 27. The free 90-minute presentation, which includes a thirty minute Q&A, will provide an in-depth review of the latest requirements for compliance, including:

• An overview of the BSA, with discussion of requirements and common violations;
• Monitoring of money laundering;
• Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs);
• Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) adverse action notice requirements; and
• Office of Consumer Protection contact information.

In remarks at the FDIC Community Banking Conference in Arlington, Virginia, Chairman Gruenberg shared FDIC research results showing the resilience of the community banking sector after 30 years of industry consolidation; discussed the solid performance of community banks in what has been a relatively challenging post-crisis economic environment; and outlined the priorities for the FDIC that may be responsive to some of the challenges that lie ahead in its supervision of community banks .

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee have released the minutes of the Committee meeting held on March 15–16, 2016. Minutes of past meetings can be viewed on the Board's website.

The CFPB has issued a "Save the Date" reminder of the April 21, 2016, meeting of its Community Bank Advisory Council, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EDT. The meeting is open to members of the public who reserve a seat by email. The agenda for the meeting was also posted.

The Department of Labor and the White House have announced the Labor Department's issuance of a "Conflict of Interest" final rule defining who is a “fiduciary” of an employee benefit plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) as a result of giving investment advice to a plan or its participants or beneficiaries. The final rule also applies to the definition of a “fiduciary” of a plan (including an individual retirement account (IRA)) under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (Code). The final rule treats persons who provide investment advice or recommendations for a fee or other compensation with respect to assets of a plan or IRA as fiduciaries in a wider array of advice relationships. The rule is scheduled for Federal Register publication on April 8, 2016, with an effective date of June 7, 2016, but carries an "applicability date" of April 10, 2017. The Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration has posted a Conflict of Interest Final Rule webpage with key links related to the rule.

Update 1/10/2017: The "applicability date" has been corrected from April 17, 2017, to April 10, 2017.

The Federal Reserve Board has published a proposed rule in today's Federal Register with technical amendments to its rule requiring global systemically important bank holding companies (GSIBs) to hold additional amounts of risk-based capital. The proposal would not materially change the underlying rule finalized by the Board in July 2015. That rule established the criteria for identifying a firm as a GSIB and the methodology a GSIB is required to use to determine its risk-based capital surcharge, which corresponds to the systemic risk of that firm. The proposed amendments clarify that GSIBs must continue to calculate their surcharges using year-end data, while their related surcharge data will be reported on a quarterly basis. The proposal also clarifies that these firms are required to compute their surcharge scores using billions of dollars. The amendments also provide additional information on how GSIBs should calculate their short-term wholesale funding scores, which help to determine their surcharges, during the rule's transition period. Comments will be accepted through May 13, 2016.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced the acceptance of an Offer of Settlement submitted by Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) in response to a cease-and- desist order issued by the SEC. LVS agreed to pay a $9 million penalty to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by failing to properly authorize or document millions of dollars in payments to a consultant facilitating business activities in China and Macao. For details, see Vegas casino pays $9M CMP for FCPA violations in our Penalties pages.

A sealed opinion in the case of MetLife, Inc. v. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) rendered in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has been unsealed (released) by the issuing judge. The opinion of the Court was that MetLife was eligible for designation for supervision by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), but due to the FSOC’s unacknowledged departure from its guidance and express refusal to consider cost required the Court to rescind the Final Determination made by the FSOC that MetLife was subject to supervision by the FRB. The FSOC was empowered by provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act to designate certain nonbank financial companies for supervision by the FRB. The FSOC published in the Federal Register on April 11, 2012, a final rule and interpretive guidance (Guidance) for Nonbank Financial Company Determinations and created a Designations web page. The Guidance was utilized by the FSOC to evaluate nonbank financial companies that could become subject to supervision by the FRB. The FSOC notified MetLife on July 16, 2013, it was being considered for supervision designation. MetLife representatives met with the FSOC twelve times and submitted 21,000 pages of documents in opposition to designation. A hearing was held on November 3, 2014. The FSOC made a “Final Determination” that “material financial distress” at MetLife could pose a threat to the financial stability of the United States and on December 18, 2014, voted to designate MetLife. MetLife filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., challenging the decision of the (FSOC). Treasury Secretary Lew issued a statement on the Court's opinion.

Federal Reserve Financial Services has published the April 2016 issue of FedFocus featuring an article on how one financial institution has embraced the ease and automation of the FedPayments Reporter Service. Other topics discussed include: "Putting all our payment eggs in a single basket," "Spring into your FEDucaton," and "Fed Facts: Cash in on a wealth of personal finance resources."

The February 2016 G.19 Consumer Credit Report has been released by the Federal Reserve. Consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5-3/4 percent, revolving credit increased at a 3-3/4 percent annual rate, while nonrevolving credit increased at a 6-1/2 percent annual rate.

The FDIC has issued guidance to help financial institutions and to facilitate recovery in areas of Texas and Mississippi affected by severe storms, tornadoes and flooding.

• FIL-26-2016 (Texas)
• FIL-27-2016 (Mississippi)

In written testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Director Cordray presented the CFPB Semi-Annual Report to Congress in fulfillment of its statutory responsibility and commitment to accountability and transparency. The report provides an update on the Bureau’s mission, activities, accomplishments, and publications since the last Semi-Annual Report, and provides additional information required by the Dodd-Frank Act.

The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has published regulations (31 CFR 554) to implement Executive Order 13712 of November 22, 2015 (“Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing  to the Situation in Burundi”). OFAC intends to supplement this part 554 with a more comprehensive set of regulations, which may include additional interpretive and definitional guidance and additional general licenses and statements of licensing policy. The regulations are effective immediately.

• 81 FR 19878

The FDIC has issued a special edition of Supervisory Insights, A Community Bank Director's Guide to Corporate Governance: 21st Century Reflections on the FDIC Pocket Guide for Directors. This special corporate governance edition reviews the Pocket Guide and incorporates more recent guidance and technical resources to help board members effectively fulfill their role and duties. FIL-23-2016 was also released, with a summary and highlights of the Pocket Guide.

FinCEN has announced the issuance of a $1 million civil money penalty against Sparks Nugget, Inc. d/b/a John Ascuaga’s Nugget, of Sparks, Nevada. Sparks Nugget admitted that it willfully violated the AML provisions of the BSA. For details on this story, see "Nevada casino fined $1M for willful BSA/AML violations," in our Penalties pages.

The NCUA has announced the liquidation of six federal credit unions in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area:

• Cardozo Lodge Federal Credit Union of Bensalem (83 members, $226,485 assets)
• Chester Upland School Employees Federal Credit Union of Chester (593 members, $827,269 assets)
• Electrical Inspectors Federal Credit Union of Bensalem (44 members, $65,894)
• O P S EMP Federal Credit Union of Bensalem (85 members, $1,182, 927 assets)
• Servco Federal Credit Union of Bensalem (795 members, $2,193,229 assets)
• Triangle Interests % Service Center Federal Credit Union of Bensalem (99 members, $290,098 assets)

All six credit unions received management and recordkeeping services from Service Center for Credit Unions, Inc., in Bensalem. There have now been ten federally insured credit union liquidations in 2016.

On March 31, President Obama signed into law the “Foreclosure Relief and Extension of Servicemembers Act of 2015.” This short piece of legislation amended the dates in Section 710(d) of the “Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 (Public Law 112-154) to extend the sunset in that act of the temporary substitution of “one year” for “90 days” in sections 303(b) and (c) of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (50 U.S.C. 3953). The new sunset date is December 31, 2017. Those of you who put off updating your HUD SCRA delinquency notice in the hope that Congress would act made the right choice. If you did update your notices, you must now change the “90 days” back to “one year.” BankersOnline's Regulations page for § 3953 has been annotated to note this change.

The U.S. State Department has designated Salah Abdeslam, the Belgian-born national of Moroccan descent accused of involvement in the November 13, 2015, terrorist attacks in Paris, as a specially-designated global terrorist under section 1(b) of Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which imposes sanctions and penalties on foreign persons that have committed, or pose a serious risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States. As a result of this designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Abdeslam has any interest is blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with him. See our OFAC Update for more information.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has released a list of 23 national banks and federal savings associations whose Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations became public in March 2016. Of the institutions listed, five received outstanding ratings. The others were rated satisfactory.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by Wells Fargo Bank from a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a $203 million ruling issued against the bank in 2010 by a federal judge in San Francisco (Gutierrez v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.). In the 2010 ruling, Wells Fargo was found to have sought to "maximize the number of overdrafts" by posting largest debit card charges first. The judge had declared that that the bank had deceived its customers in violation of California's consumer protection law, and awarded $203 million in restitution to customers charged for overdrafts between 2004 and 2008. According to the Times, Wells Fargo attorneys argued that there was no proof that the customers had actually been deceived, since there was no proof they had ever read or relied on the bank's policies. The 9th Circuit had rejected that claim, ruling that consumers are protected from a company's deception, even if they never actually read its disclosures.

The FDIC has issued FIL-22-2016 with the Federal Reserve and the OCC, with information on the First Quarter 2016 Call Reports, which must be received by April 30, 2016 (except for certain institutions with foreign offices). As noted earlier this year, this quarter's Call Report does not include new or revised data items.

The Housing and Urban Development Department has kicked off Fair Housing Month 2016 with the launch of a new national media campaign that helps the public envision what communities with shared opportunity for all might look like. The new campaign is designed to further educate the public about their housing rights and the ideals behind HUD’s new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) initiative. The campaign, which was developed in partnership with the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), will include print public service announcements in various languages, television in English and Spanish, online videos, and social media outreach. The campaign will run throughout 2016, and comes as the nation celebrates the 48th anniversary Fair Housing Act.

The Federal Reserve Board has posted the G.5 Foreign Exchange Rates data for March 2016, and its 2016 Annual Revision of G.17 Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization data.

FinCEN has published [81 FR 19086] a proposed rule that would amend the definitions of “broker or dealer in securities” and “broker-dealer” under the regulations implementing the Bank Secrecy Act. The proposal would amend those definitions explicitly to include funding portals that are involved in the offering or selling of crowdfunding securities pursuant to section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933. The funding portals would then be required to implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act requirements currently applicable to brokers or dealers in securities. The proposal is intended to help prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. Comments on the proposal are due by June 3, 2016.

The FDIC has released a list of 57 state nonmember banks recently evaluated for compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The list covers ratings assigned to institutions in January 2016. There were six institutions that earned an "Outstanding" rating. The other 51 banks received "Satisfactory" evaluations.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned seven Mexican companies linked to the Mexico-based Los Cuinis Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) and its leader, Abigael Gonzalez Valencia. As a result of that action, any assets those designees may have under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

OFAC also posted several removals from and updates to its Kingpin Act ([SDNTK] listings, removed an Iraq-related listing and updated a South Sudan listing.

For more information on OFAC's actions, see our April 4, 2016, OFAC Update.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced its second PrivacyCon research conference will take place on January 12, 2017, and has published a call for presentations. PrivacyCon is designed to continue and expand collaboration among leading whitehat researchers, academics, industry representatives, consumer advocates and the government to address the privacy and security implications of emerging technologies. Submissions for PrivacyCon must be made by October 3, 2016.