JPMorgan Chase Bank last week agreed to a $53 million settlement with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, bringing to a close allegations of discriminatory lending against minority borrowers through its wholesale-broker channel in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act. According to the consent order, prior to January 2006 and continuing until early 2009, Chase originated and funded residential mortgage loans through a wholesale channel. “Applications for these loans were brought to Chase by thousands of independent mortgage brokers throughout the United States who had entered into contracts with Chase for the purpose of bringing mortgage loan applications to it for origination and funding.” Also, from 2006 to 2009, approximately ...

The CFPB Office of Inspector General recently initiated an evaluation of the bureau’s use of vendors to support its analysis of fair lending compliance, the OIG indicated in its latest work plan. The OIG begins by noting, among other responsibilities, the CFPB is charged with providing oversight and enforcement of federal laws intended to ensure the fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory access to credit. But what may surprise many in the industry is to learn that the agency relies on external vendors to help fulfill this responsibility. “Our objective is to assess whether the CFPB effectively mitigates the risk associated with the use of vendors to support fair lending analysis, particularly with respect to potential conflicts of interest,” said the OIG ...

The U.S. Department of Justice recently reached a settlement with two jointly owned but independently operated banks in Ohio, Union Savings Bank and Guardian Savings Bank, resolving allegations that the pair engaged in a pattern or practice of redlining predominantly African-American neighborhoods in and around the Ohio cities of Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton, as well as in Indianapolis. According to the government’s complaint, Union (with $2.7 billion in assets and 29 branches) and Guardian (with $861 million in assets and 11 branches) violated the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibit financial institutions from discriminating on the basis of race and color in their mortgage lending practices. The Justice Department alleges that, from at least 2010 ...

Trump Administration Staffs up Bureau ‘Landing Team.’ The transition team of the incoming administration of President-elect Trump recently announced the members of its CFPB “landing team,” one of whom is Paul Atkins, currently CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a consulting firm. Atkins is a former commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission.... House, Senate Re-tool for 115th Congress. Congressional leaders have updated their committee and subcommittee leadership assignments for a new Congress that promises to put more heat than ever on the CFPB, now that a Republican will occupy the White House for the first time since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act and the establishment of the bureau....

Mortgage-related issues will be a big component of the CFPB’s fair lending priorities for 2017, the bureau indicated in an online blog post late last year. Among the issues for the mortgage industry are redlining and servicing. “While the bureau has taken important strides in our efforts to protect consumers from credit discrimination and broaden access to credit, we continue to identify new and emerging fair lending risks and we will monitor institutions for compliance,” said Patrice Ficklin, associate director of the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending. Going forward, then, the bureau is increasing its focus in three key areas, the first of which is redlining. “We will continue to evaluate whether lenders have intentionally avoided lending in minority neighborhoods,” ...

Industry Groups Urge Congressional Leaders to Pass ‘Tax Extenders’ Legislation. Three industry groups called upon House and Senate leaders to pass “tax extenders” legislation, including two critical tax provisions that are scheduled to expire at the end of 2016. In a joint letter this week, the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders called for the “rapid enactment” of a broad “tax extenders” package, including mortgage-debt forgiveness and tax deduction for mortgage insurance premiums. Passing a legislative package of tax extenders that includes the two provisions would provide much-needed certainty to the residential real estate markets, the letter said. Federal Agencies Propose Rule to Expand Access to Private Flood Insurance. Federal banking and credit union regulators and the Farm Credit Administration have published a ...

The CFPB’s latest supervisory highlights report provides some Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting reminders for 2017. For starters, beginning with HMDA data collected in 2017 and submitted in 2018, responsibility to receive and process HMDA data will transfer from the Federal Reserve Board to the CFPB. “The HMDA agencies have agreed that a covered institution filing HMDA data collected in or after 2017 with the CFPB will be deemed to have submitted the HMDA data to the appropriate federal agency,” the bureau stated. (The HMDA agencies are the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.) ...

The CFPB has formally authorized the collection of expanded Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information on race and ethnicity, as per the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B, in 2017. “At any time from Jan. 1, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2017, a creditor may, at its option, permit applicants to self-identify using disaggregated ethnic and racial categories as instructed in appendix B to Regulation C, as amended by the 2015 HMDA final rule,” the bureau said in a Sept. 29, 2016, notice in the Federal Register. During this period, a lender permitting applicants to self-identify using these categories shall not be deemed to violate Regulation B Section 1002.5(b). Further, the lender shall also be deemed to be in compliance with ...

One mortgage lender recently inquired of Michael Goldhirsh, director of legal and regulatory compliance for the Lenders Compliance Group, as to whether the definition of “application” in the CFPB’s TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID) triggers or otherwise affects reporting under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. In a recent blog posting, he replied: “The short answer is that receipt of some or all of the six pieces of TRID application information does not necessarily trigger an application for purposes of HMDA reporting.” Goldhirsh went on to explain that Regulation C defines an application for HMDA reporting purposes as an oral or written request for a home purchase loan, a home improvement loan, or a refinancing that is made in accordance with ...

The CFPB and the Department of Justice late last month announced a $10.6 million enforcement action against BancorpSouth, a regional bank headquartered in Tupelo, MS, alleging the lender engaged in discriminatory mortgage lending practices that harmed African-Americans and other minorities. Of particular note, the bureau said, “This is the CFPB’s first use of testing, sometimes referred to as ‘mystery shopping,’ to support an allegation of discrimination.” The government’s complaint accuses BancorpSouth of illegally redlining in Memphis, TN, denying certain African-Americans mortgage loans more often than similarly situated non-Hispanic white applicants, and charging African-American customers more for certain mortgage loans than non-Hispanic white borrowers with similar loan qualifications. The agencies also alleged the lender implemented an explicitly discriminatory loan denial policy...