Industry Groups Urge Restructuring of CFPB. Wading into risky political territory, a number of industry groups last week urged Congress to support H.R. 1266, legislation that would revamp the governing structure of the CFPB. Submitting a statement for the record to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, the industry groups said consumers and the industry would be better served by changing the CFPB governance structure from a single director to a bipartisan five-person commission as used by other federal agencies. “The CFPB has tremendous authority to supervise a multi-trillion dollar industry, which as we have learned, can have incredible ramifications on our economy,” the statement said. “As such, it is imperative the CFPB remain stable ...

There is good news for investors in private student-loan ABS these days, according to the latest market intelligence from industry analysts. Student loan performance was healthy in the first quarter, and more growth is expected going forward. Continued strong performance trends were seen in repayment, delinquencies and charge-offs for private student loans through March 31, 2015, according to the semi-annual private student-loan performance report from MeasureOne, which was released earlier this week. Among the key findings, year-over-year delinquencies continued...

Securitization industry participants are concerned about a recent ruling in a federal appeals court that overturned longstanding preemption certain nonbanks have enjoyed from state laws, including standards for debt collection. The ruling in late May by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Madden v. Midland Funding could pose “significant implications for the securitization industry,” according to the Structured Finance Industry Group. The case involves...

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority started publishing pricing data for a broad range of ABS this week in an effort to increase transparency. Industry participants suggest that the new disclosures will prompt a decrease in trading and have some impact on pricing. The ABS pricing details are available through the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine and include deals issued as 144A private placements. “The dissemination of transaction information in ABS is...

Last week’s $9 million settlement between wholesale lender Provident Funding and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Justice to resolve allegations of excessive discriminatory fees on the part of independent mortgage brokers, has some key takeaways for the rest of the mortgage industry, top compliance attorneys say. “The first is that it obviously signals that mortgage lending is still on the radar at these agencies,” even though their attention has evolved into other types of lending products, “and they are still concerned with wholesale mortgage pricing,” said Melanie Brody, partner and co-lead of the fair lending practice at the K&L Gates law firm in Washington, DC. She also noted...

The CFPB and the Florida Attorney General’s office were granted a $27.7 million final judgment on Friday against the Hoffman Law Group and corporate affiliates, which allegedly used deceptive marketing practices and scammed distressed homeowners into paying illegal advance fees. The lawsuit named Hoffman Law Group (formerly Residential Litigation Group), its operators, Michael Harper, Benn Willcox and attorney Marc Hoffman, and its affiliated companies, Nationwide Management Solutions, Legal Intake Solutions, File Intake Solutions, and BM Marketing Group, all based in North Palm Beach, FL. The two government agencies accused the companies of tricking consumers into paying millions of dollars in illegal upfront fees to join frivolous lawsuits that the companies falsely claimed would pressure banks to modify their loans or ...

A number of industry groups representing a broad array of financial services providers took advantage of the CFPB’s latest inquiry about consumer complaint information to express their concerns with the bureau’s possible expansions of its related database. Earlier this year, the bureau issued a formal request for information about the Consumer Complaint Database, asking for “input from the public on the potential collection and sharing of consumer compliments about providers of consumer financial products and services and more information about a company’s complaint handling.” The bureau specifically asked for input on two key points, the first of which was ranking or otherwise sorting service providers by certain metrics related to the complaints they receive, allowing complainants to rate service providers’ ...

Consumer complaints about credit reporting pretty much remained flat in the first quarter of 2015 from the fourth quarter of 2014 – up a scant 0.5 percent during that period – but dropped 11.0 percent overall from year-ago levels, a notable decline. An analysis of the CFPB’s consumer complaint database by Inside the CFPB found that each of the big three credit reporting firms – Experian, Equifax and TransUnion – saw declines year over year. Experian turned in the best performance of the three, however, seeing a drop of 18.4 percent. TransUnion was the only one of the big three to see a decline in both periods.Among specific complaints, “incorrect information” continues to represent the lion’s share of negative consumer feedback ... [with exclusive data chart]

The CFPB plans to release its long-awaited final rule to implement Dodd-Frank Act amendments to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act in late summer, according to the bureau’s Spring 2015 rulemaking agenda, which was released late last month. “The proposal would help align the law with existing industry standards for collecting data on mortgage loans and applications,” said the agency. “It would also improve HMDA’s effectiveness through changes to institutional and transactional coverage, modifications of reporting requirements, and clarifications of existing regulatory provisions. We expect to release a final rule in late summer.” Elsewhere, the CFPB continues to be steadfast on the Aug. 1, 2015, effective date for its TILA/ RESPA integrated disclosure rule, and its latest rulemaking agenda betrays no ...

Public Silent on Information Collection Plans to Survey Consumers, Conduct Cognitive Research. More than one week after the public comment period closed on two “generic information collection plans” from the CFPB, there was not a single public comment submitted for the official record, Inside the CFPB discovered when searching the U.S. government’s regulation.gov website. The first GICP had to do with surveys using the Consumer Credit Panel. In order to improve its understanding of how consumers engage with financial markets, the CFPB uses this CCP, a proprietary sample dataset from one of the national credit reporting agencies, as a framework to survey people about their experiences in consumer credit markets. The sample includes approximately 5 million de-identified credit records representing ...