The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council should institute an official transition period to provide lenders greater clarity and certainty in anticipation of the CFPB’s new TILA/RESPA integrated disclosure rule (TRID) slated to take effect Oct. 3, the American Bankers Association said in a letter to the financial regulatory group. The CFPB is one of the regulatory bodies that comprise the FFIEC. “We request that the FFIEC – on behalf of all banking regulators – formally establish a transition period and clarify how regulators will oversee and examine regulated institutions for TRID compliance during this time,” the ABA said in a recent letter to the council. “In so doing, the FFIEC would provide needed certainty to the credit markets and encourage lenders to ...

The CFPB, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency brought a combined $37.3 million enforcement action against Citizens Bank earlier this month for allegedly failing to credit consumers the full amounts of their deposited funds. The regulatory agencies accused the bank of keeping money from deposit discrepancies when receipts did not match actual money transferred. “Citizens Bank regularly denied customers the full credits of their deposits when there were discrepancies between deposit slips and the actual money transferred into the bank,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The bank chose to ignore these discrepancies and harmed many consumers by pocketing the difference.” The CFPB said its investigation found that from January 1, 2008, to ...

In another example of joint agency enforcement and jurisdictional cooperation, the CFPB and the New York Department of Financial Services filed a lawsuit in federal court last week against Pension Funding LLC and Pension Income LLC, and three of the companies’ managers over allegations they deceived consumers about the costs and risks of their pension advance loans. From 2011 until about December 2014, Pension Funding and Pension Income, two California-based companies, offered consumers lump-sum cash advances for agreeing to redirect all or part of their pension payments over a period of eight years, according to CFPB and the NYDFS. More specifically, the joint complaint alleges that the companies and individual defendants Steven Covey, Edwin Lichtig and Rex Hofelter represented to ...

The CFPB last week ordered Springstone Financial LLC of Westborough, MA – now known as Lending Club Patient Solutions – to provide $700,000 in relief to roughly 3,200 victims of allegedly deceptive credit enrollment tactics. The bureau said the business practices at issue took place mostly before the company’s acquisition by LendingClub Corp., a $140 million transaction that took place back in April 2014 with financing provided from funds and accounts handled by T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Wellington Management Company LLP, BlackRock Inc. and Sands Capital, according to Bloomberg News. According to the CFPB, a number of consumers who signed up for Springstone’s deferred-interest loan product at dental offices to finance dental work were led to believe that the product was ...

The CFPB has denied a recent petition from Selling Source, LLC, a lead-generation company in Las Vegas, and Tim Madsen, a company employee and recipient of a civil investigative demand from the bureau, to modify or set aside the action. “Petitioners raise a number of objections to the CID, none of which warrants setting aside or modifying the CID,” said the bureau. First, the petitioners contend that the CID’s notification of purpose is too vague and thus fails to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, according to the CFPB’s decision. The bureau said the related statute and regulation do not require a detailed narrative and that it may draw the boundaries of its investigation quite generally. Second, the petitioners contend ...

World Acceptance Corp., a publicly traded small-loan consumer finance company based in Greenville, SC, recently revealed that CFPB enforcement staff is considering whether to recommend the agency bring legal action against the company. The company received a civil investigative demand from the bureau back in March, the stated purpose of which is to determine whether the company has been or is “engaging in unlawful acts or practices in connection with the marketing, offering, or extension of credit.” World Acceptance Corp. responded, within the deadlines specified in the CID, to “broad requests for the production of documents, answers to interrogatories and written reports related to loans made by the company and numerous other aspects of the company’s business,” the firm said ...

A number of consumer-oriented organizations are urging members of Congress to defeat H.R. 1737, the “Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act,” legislation they say would cripple the bureau’s ability to act against discriminatory auto lending practices. H.R. 1737, introduced this spring by Rep. Frank Guinta, R-NH, would require the CFPB to rescind its guidance from March 2013 regarding the fair lending risks associated with car dealer interest rate markups. The bill also would require the bureau to provide notice and take comments only for guidance related to auto lending through car dealers. Additionally, the legislation would make publicly available all information relied on by the CFPB, and redact any information exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act....

The National Association of Women in Real Estate Businesses is among the industry groups that generally support the final interagency statement on diversity policies and practices issued by the CFPB, the federal banking regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, in its comment letter to the agencies, one of the issues the group addressed was ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected under the final statement. “Detail is important; when releasing information, agencies and their regulated entities must carefully detail the ways they are promoting diversity and the success and shortcomings of each of their efforts,” the NAWREB said. “The difficulty will always be ensuring that the minority and women inclusion is ...

The CFPB’s arbitration report to Congress “contains substantial methodological flaws and does not support a ban on arbitration clauses in consumer credit contracts,” law professors at the University of Virginia and George Mason University concluded in a recent study. “To the contrary, the data presented in the report show that consumers on balance are better off if they have the arbitration process available to them for dispute resolution,” they added. “Rather than relying on flawed methodology and inaccurate data, the CFPB should focus on the actual benefits arbitration provides to consumers.” Jason Scott Johnston, a law professor at UVA, and Todd Zywicki, a law professor at GMU, reviewed the bureau report for the Mercatus Center and determined that CFPB’s findings ...

The number of complaints that consumers filed with the CFPB about debt collection practices fell 9.6 percent from the first quarter to the second and plunged 53.3 percent at the six-month mark versus one year ago, a new analysis by Inside the CFPB found. The biggest banks among the top 50 companies as ranked by complaints all acquitted themselves well at the mid-year 2015 point compared with the year before. Most notable in this regard was Wells Fargo, which saw consumer gripes fall 74.7 percent.Top debt collection firms had a more mixed performance. On the one hand, Encore Capital Group saw consumer criticisms fall 67.2 percent year over year, and 14.9 percent quarter over quarter. But Enhanced Recovery Company ...