The D.C. circuit decision involving PHH Mortgage and Sec. 8 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act should lead the CFPB to rethink its 2015 guidance on marketing services agreements, industry groups say. The CFPB under former director Richard Cordray issued guidance suggesting that many MSAs are designed to evade RESPA’s prohibition on the payment and acceptance of kickbacks and referral fees. “What the bureau did was to create an impression that it would ...

A House Republican asked the CFPB to stop so- called regulation by enforcement and to clarify the use and role of the guidance it has issued. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO, recently sent a letter to six agencies, including the CFPB, expressing concerns that guidance that does not go through notice-and-comment rulemaking has been used as the basis of enforcement actions. “Many of my colleagues and I hear frequently from financial institutions that guidance promulgated ...

A federal judge in New York last week ruled that the structure of the CFPB is unconstitutional, creating a conflict with a D.C. circuit court ruling. The decision by Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York also said the CFPB cannot bring claims under the Consumer Financial Protection Act or pursue enforcement actions against the defendants in the case, RD Legal Funding and related entities. An en banc decision in January ...

President Trump last week nominated Kathy Kraninger, a little-known White House budget official, to head the CFPB. The nomination has set the stage for a contentious Senate confirmation process. Most observers were surprised by Trump’s CFPB pick as Kraninger’s name has never come up in public discussion of possible nominees to become the next director of the bureau. The first question for many was: Who is Kathy Kraninger? The nominee currently serves as ...

t is still a big question mark how Kathy Kraninger, President Trump’s nominee to head the CFPB, will perform in Senate confirmation hearings. But the widely different reactions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers signal a contentious and drawn-out process. The White House last week officially sent the nomination of Kraninger to the Senate. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will hold a hearing on the nominee, which could ...

The CFPB fined a South Carolina-based installment lender $5 million for unlawful debt collection practices, including threatening consumers with jail, shoving them and physically blocking a consumer from leaving private property. It is the second enforcement action since Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, took the reins of the CFPB last year. The Security Group and its subsidiaries own and operate approximately 900 locations in 20 states across the country ...

CFPB oversight has not significantly reduced the volume of mortgage originations, but it has changed the kinds of loans being made, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found. Critics of the CFPB have argued that its activities increased compliance costs and ultimately reduced the availability of financial services to consumers. However, a recent New York Fed staff report found there’s little evidence supporting that theory in the mortgage business. The market share of ...

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney plans to cut the agency’s 2019 budget by 20 percent, bringing its spending down to roughly the level set in 2015. “I’ve asked them to run through the experiment of reducing spending by 20 percent,” to under $490 million, said the acting bureau chief in a recent round- table discussion with reporters. Mulvaney is also the director of the Office of Management and Budget. The CFPB later confirmed the spending cuts, noting that ...

In response to the CFPB’s request for information on adopted rules, industry groups especially want the bureau to make some changes to the qualified mortgage standards under the ability-to-repay rule, including making the “GSE patch” permanent. The ATR rule generally requires a maximum debt-to-income ratio of 43 percent in order to get QM status. Special rules apply to agency mortgages, however, including a temporary provision that loans eligible for sale to the ...

The CFPB has issued a report on end-of- year credit card borrowing and repayment of credit card balances in the following year. The report found the year-end rise in consumer debt was most pronounced in general purpose credit card debt and retail store card debt. Delinquency rates on credit cards rise during and after the holiday season, driven by consumers with subprime credit scores, the report said [Includes one brief] ...