Associates of Erbey told IMFnews that he knew several weeks ago that he would be stepping down from the company and viewed himself as a sacrificial lamb of sorts…
Supervision & Enforcement to Exceed Half of CFPB Staff. The staffing level in the supervision, enforcement and fair lending division of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is projected to rise to just over half – 51.4 percent – of bureau personnel for fiscal year 2015, which began Oct. 1, 2014, and ends Sept. 30, 2015. SEFL staff made up 45.7 percent of the CFPB’s workforce in FY 2014. The other division of a significant size that is projected to grow in FY 2015 is the consumer response unit, which is slated to expand from 11.8 percent of the staff to 12.4 percent. There are two other large divisions – the operations unit and the research, markets and regulations unit – and both are projected ...
Many mortgage lenders are going to feel they are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” when they learn about the fair lending pitfalls inadvertently lurking in the weeds of compliance with the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule and the forthcoming Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule. “Looking ahead to next year and beyond, the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure rule could bring additional new risk,” said Colgate Selden, counsel with the Alston & Bird law firm, during a recent webinar on fair lending risk sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated newsletter. “Some of these are old risks that may have gone away, but are back in some ways,” Selden told attendees. ...
Different segments of the financial services industry are split on the CFPB’s proposal to implement a limited “no-action letter” policy to reduce the regulatory uncertainty that may exist for certain emerging products or services which stand to benefit consumers. The proposed policy would allow bureau staff to send a no-action letter to a company informing it that the CFPB isn’t planning to recommend initiation of supervisory or enforcement action in connection with a firm’s offering or provision of a new product. As innocuous as that sounds, at least one firm, International Bancshares Corp. of Laredo, TX, said it had serious concerns with the bureau’s proposal, which the company characterized as very narrow.Among the company’s complaints is that the bureau’s ...
The CFPB’s proposed rule, “Defining Larger Participants in the Automobile Financing Market,” didn’t win many friends in the auto finance sector during the public comment period which closed earlier this month. The proposed rule would generally allow the bureau to supervise larger nonbank auto finance companies – those that make, acquire or refinance 10,000 or more loans or leases in a year – for the first time at the federal level. The bureau also indicated that it considered, and is continuing to consider, the establishment of a higher threshold – 50,000 annual originations, and one that is lower – 5,000 annual originations.The National Independent Automobile Dealers Association told the CFPB it should decline to establish any threshold that is lower than the 10,000 ...
The CFPB’s annual report on college credit card agreements, released last week, found a nearly 70 percent decline in the number of agreements since Congress passed new disclosure requirements in 2009. According to the bureau, this indicates that marketing partnerships between colleges and financial institutions are moving away from credit cards towards other products such as debit and prepaid cards, which generally have fewer “sunshine” protections.