Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney has reportedly dropped another payday lending case, giving new ammunition to his critics. According to a Reuters report, five people with direct knowledge of the matter said the CFPB under the leadership of Mulvaney decided not to go after National Credit Adjusters and is pondering whether to end cases against three other payday lenders. The agency declined to comment on the Reuters report. Mulvaney said in February the bureau won’t spend a lot of energy ...

CFPB Upgrades Mortgage Servicing Small Entity Compliance Guide. The CFPB has released version 3.1 of its mortgage servicing Small Entity Compliance Guide. The SECG provides a summary of the agency’s 2016 final mortgage servicing rule, which goes into effect April 19. The revised guide incorporates an amendment to the rule released earlier this month, which replaces the previous single-billing-cycle exemption with a single-statement exemption for mortgage servicers ... [Includes three briefs]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, continues to be a pain to CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney. She sent another letter to Mulvaney last week, demanding answers about his leadership of the bureau. Since Mulvaney took over the agency in November 2017, Warren and her colleagues have sent him nine letters including 125 questions and requests. In the most recent letter, Warren accused the acting director of failing to answer or inadequately answering 105 of those questions ...

The fight between Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and the CFPB’s Acting Director Mick Mulvaney regarding the payday lending rule is escalating. In a two-paragraph response released last week, Mulvaney rejected the accusation that his decision to retreat from payday lending was connected to the campaign contributions that payday lenders gave. “I rejected your insinuation – repeated three times in as many pages – that my actions as acting director are based on considerations other than than a careful examination ...

At $600K a Year, Fannie Mae CEO Tim Mayopoulos is Underpaid. Although Fannie Mae reported pre-tax income of $18.4 billion in 2017, its CEO Timothy Mayopoulos took home, once again, a base salary of roughly $600,000, the limit for both GSE CEOs and a figure that seems exceedingly low when compared to financial services firms of similar size. A new 10-K filing from the company notes: “Our chief executive officer’s compensation in 2017 was more than 90 percent below the market median for comparable firms. Our inability to offer market-based compensation hinders our succession planning for our chief executive officer role, and potentially our ability to hire...

House Rules Committee Expected to Clear Legislation to Tweak Points and Fees Definition under the ATR Rule. The House Rules Committee is expected to clear sometime this week H.R. 1153, “The Mortgage Choice Act,” legislation that would make two adjustments to the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) definition of points and fees to ensure greater consumer choice in mortgage and settlement services under the ability-to-repay/qualified mortgage rule.... OIG Has Mixed News for CFPB on Mobile Device Data Security. The CFPB got a dinged report card from the Office of Inspector General in terms of the security of mobile technology that bureau staff use. “Mobile devices help CFPB staff carry out their duties, but the portability of these devices heightens the risk of loss or theft of IT equipment and data,” said the OIG in explaining its motivation for evaluating the CFPB’s mobile encryption practices....

The CFPB has decided to abandon its pursuit of a group of payday lenders it had accused of misleading consumers about the true extent of the costs associated with its loans, which purportedly carried interest rates as high as 950 percent a year. The agency gave no explanation about its decision to reverse course. An interesting twist is that payday lenders are generally regulated at the state level, and since the lenders in this case happen to be associated with a Native American tribe, they can argue that state laws do not apply to them. Payday Lending Rule Kaput? Also last week, the CFPB indicated it might just deep-six its controversial payday lending rule. “Jan. 16, 2018, is the effective ...

The CFPB made a big splash last week – perhaps the last of Richard Cordray’s career at the helm – by issuing its long-awaited payday lending final rule. Many observers watching the director for signs he will resign to run for governor of Ohio have speculated he has been hanging on at the bureau until this rule was formally promulgated. Now that it has been issued, the Cordray departure watch will resume. Under the new rule, there’s a full-payment test. Lenders are required to determine whether the borrower can afford the loan payments and still meet basic living expenses and major financial obligations. For payday and auto title loans that are due in one lump sum, full payment means “being able to ...

Issuers of ABS are utilizing diverse structures to comply with the risk-retention requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act, according to a new sector commentary by analysts at Moody’s Investors Service. “Although securitization sponsors’ retention of portions of their own deals in general is credit positive … the rules have effectively just formalized prior common industry practices for many consumer ABS subsectors. This confirms our initial stance that the rules are only marginally credit positive for this sector,” said Vice President and Senior Analyst Yan Yan and Vice President and Senior Credit Officer Jingjing Dang. “That said, the methods of compliance that have emerged among ABS asset classes since the rules went into effect in December have varied.” Their first take-away is...

The CFPB’s final rule banning arbitration agreements, as well as pending rulemakings on payday and small-dollar lending and on debt collection practices, may live or die on the decision of Director Richard Cordray to exit his term before it expires in July. That prospect could be motivating him to linger in his current gig as opposed to resigning right now to enter the race for Ohio’s governorship, according to an analysis of the current lay of the land at the bureau from a former senior official at the agency. Former CFPB Assistant Director and Deputy General Counsel Quyen Truong, now a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in DC, noted that it is still unclear whether Republicans in the ...