Fair lending enforcement moved to a new level last week when the CFPB and the Department of Justice signed an agreement to strengthen the coordination of their efforts in this regard as well as to avoid duplication. The good news for the industry is any effort to reduce government duplication could similarly reduce lenders’ compliance burden. Under the memorandum of understanding the agencies signed, the CFPB and Justice will meet regularly on investigations and establish strict confidentiality for shared information...

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cast some doubt on the validity of President Barack Obama’s controversial recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board – and by extension, that of Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB. Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board involves a challenge to the president’s recess appointments to the NLRB in early January – during a period when the Senate was holding pro forma sessions every three days specifically to deny him the opportunity to make...

The CFPB recently joined in the filing of a motion to dismiss a case that includes a legal challenge to President Barack Obama’s controversial recess appointment of Richard Cordray as the bureau’s director.The eventual outcome of State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, et al. v. Geithner, et al., could be significant in that it might affect not only Cordray’s appointment but an entire new level of regulatory oversight at the bureau that was inaugurated by, and in fact dependent upon, the appointment of a director at the bureau. Most notable among them would be nonbank mortgage lending...

As anxious as mortgage lenders are about the apparent delay in the CFPB’s issuance of an ability-to-repay/qualified-mortgage final rule, industry attorneys, trade group experts and consumer advocates unanimously believe that bureau is taking so much time so it can put out the best, most balanced rule as possible. Carrie Hunt, general counsel and vice president of regulatory affairs for the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, said she isn’t as concerned about when the rule comes as she is about the quality of it...

Chicago will be the first city to directly report financial activity and fraud to the CFPB, under an information-sharing agreement announced last week by CFPB Director Richard Cordray and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to help protect the city's consumers from scams related to payday lending, small-dollar loans, student loans, reverse mortgages and home repairs. "We want to learn from and expand on the ways you protect consumers, and to share these approaches nationwide," Cordray said in a press conference...

Exceptions are part of any business, and when it comes to fair lending risk exceptions, "certainly the CFPB acknowledges that," said compliance expert Tammy Butler with Optimal Blue. However, officials at the bureau are concerned with when lenders give exceptions, for what reasons and whether or not they are given fairly. "To do that, you have to have policy and monitoring," she said. Butler then provided the following checklist to help lenders build their exception policy and procedures...

The CFPB provided Congress with the agency’s first fair lending report, highlighting its first-year accomplishments, and affirming a commitment to the lending industry to be clear about its expectations going forward. “We are still in the process of building our fair lending program and expect the CFPB’s contribution to the work of ensuring compliance with fair lending laws and promoting access to credit will grow as our program progresses,” the report stated. “We are also developing risk-based approaches to...

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that 80 percent of the contact the CFPB’s Ombudsman Office received during its first year of operation was from consumers. However, the office’s first fiscal year report suggests that, for all its traditional and nontraditional outreach to consumers, such as the bureau’s social media efforts, much work remains to be done to give consumers a clear understanding of how to navigate the agency’s consumer complaint process. According to the ombudsman’s report...

The CFPB could be reconsidering its practice of having enforcement attorneys participate in the supervisory examination process, according to the fiscal year 2012 report from the bureau’s Ombudsman Office. When the CFPB was first being set up, it considered the experiences of other agencies and decided to make supervision and enforcement an integrated process within one division at the bureau, and to involve enforcement attorneys at the beginning, middle and end of the supervision examination, according to the report...

The CFPB recently issued a bulletin reminding nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies of their obligation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide a streamlined process for consumers to request a free annual credit report. The bulletin indicates that in order to be in compliance with the FCRA, which the CFPB oversees, nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies must provide a toll-free number that is published in every telephone directory in which a number for the company appears, and which is clearly and...