Representatives of the banking industry recently urged the CFPB’s Office of Inspector General to increase its scrutiny of the bureau’s customer complaint database. The OIG is currently auditing the bureau’s public database and performing a security review of the underlying database, but the American Bankers Association has some specific ideas about what the watchdog should be doing in this regard.One of the key considerations at issue, from the ABA’s point of view, is the effectiveness of the CFPB’s controls over the accuracy and completeness of the public complaint database. “[I]f the bureau lacks adequate controls to ensure the accuracy of complaint data, instead of fostering informed and responsible consumer choice, the bureau becomes an official purveyor of unsubstantiated, and ...
As part of the growing attention the CFPB is paying these days to the marketing relationships between financial institutions and colleges and universities, the CFPB released for public comment a draft Safe Student Account Scorecard that offers information to institutions of higher learning when soliciting agreements from financial institutions to market safe and affordable financial accounts for their students.“The scorecard builds on prior work by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and is designed to help colleges evaluate the costs and benefits to students of a financial product based on information about its features and how it is marketed,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The bureau is seeking public input on the scorecard, which highlights four areas for schools to ...
Nearly half of the people who buy a home do not shop for the mortgage they end up with, according to a new report from the CFPB. “When we say that almost half of consumers who take out a mortgage to buy a home fail to shop before applying for a mortgage, this means they seriously considered only a single lender or broker before making their decision,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. By contrast, most homebuyers put a lot of effort into weighing their differing housing needs. They generally consider the most basic questions about which house to buy, such as where they want to live, the proximity to good schools, and how many bedrooms or bathrooms they think they ...
The reconstituted House Financial Services Committee recently adopted an oversight plan for the 114th Congress – and scrutiny of the CFPB remains part of the agenda of the Republican-controlled committee. “The committee will oversee the regulatory, supervisory, enforcement, and other activities of the CFPB, the effect of those activities on regulated entities and consumers, and the CFPB’s collaboration with other financial regulators,” said the plan document. “The committee will also examine the governance structure and funding mechanism of the CFPB.” When it comes to specific sectors of the financial services industry, the committee said it plans to closely review recent rulemakings by the CFPB and other agencies on a variety of mortgage-related issues. “The committee will monitor the coordination and implementation ...
Obama Vows Vetoes to Dodd-Frank Changes. President Barack Obama touted the Dodd-Frank Act during his recent State of the Union speech as well as the growth of the CFPB, and threatened a veto should the Republican-controlled Congress pass any additional fixes to Dodd-Frank. “Today, we have new tools to stop taxpayer-funded bailouts, and a new consumer watchdog to protect us from predatory lending and abusive credit card practices,” Obama said. “We can’t put the security of families at risk by taking away their health insurance, or unraveling the new rules on Wall Street, or refighting past battles on immigration when we’ve got a system to fix. And if a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of ...
MBA's Dave Stevens did not mince words, calling the CFPB product "the most misleading and inaccurate tool that will do anything but help prospective homebuyers.”
The CFPB and the Maryland AG also took action against former Wells Fargo employee Todd Cohen and his wife, Elaine Oliphant Cohen, for their alleged involvement.
A total of $185.32 billion of non-mortgage ABS were issued in 2014, the highest annual production level for the market since 2007, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. ABS issuance was up 12.0 percent from the prior year, with solid gains in three of the market’s key sectors: auto finance, credit cards and business loans. The weakest link was the student loan ABS market, where annual production fell 25.4 percent from 2013 and slipped to its lowest level since 1999. Vehicle finance deals were...[Includes two data charts]
Standard & Poor’s agreed this week to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and two state attorneys general regarding ratings on commercial MBS and non-agency MBS. Regulators suggest that further actions involving the ratings services are in the works, likely including a much larger settlement with S&P regarding activity before the financial crisis. S&P’s settlement this week involved post-2010 activity. The rating service agreed to pay the SEC and attorneys general for New York and Massachusetts more than $77 million. S&P will also take a one-year “timeout” from rating conduit/fusion commercial MBS. “They lied...
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