On December 21, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced delays and potential changes to its Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and pre-paid card regulations. Both sets of regulations have been subject to criticism by industry participants and others. Although lenders will have to comply with the CFPB’s HMDA…
On December 5, 2017, the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Mick Mulvaney over Trump’s appointment of Mulvaney as the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The case, Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union v. Trump, et al., No….
On November 21, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a national bank, resolving allegations over the bank’s allegedly harmful student loan servicing practices and requiring it to pay millions in consumer relief and civil penalties. According to the CFPB, the bank engaged…
Three months after the U.S. House of Representatives voted on July 25, 2017 to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Arbitration Rule, the U.S. Senate followed suit. On October 24, 2017, the Senate passed a joint resolution previously passed by the House disapproving of the Arbitration Rule with a 51-to-50…
On November 8, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced it filed suit in federal court in California against a national debt-settlement services provider and its CEO based on alleged violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, 12 U.S.C. §§ 5531, 5536(a), 5564, 5565, the Telemarketing Consumer Fraud and Abuse…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its quarterly report on credit trends for the third quarter of 2017 last week, focusing on trends in the auto lending industry. Auto loans are a key sector in the lending market—approximately100 million auto loans are outstanding, valued at more than $1 trillion….
On October 18, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published guidelines for financial institutions to use when authorizing third-party access to consumers’ financial information. These guidelines are targeted at protecting consumers who give their consent to allow other companies to access their account information. Companies—including fintech firms, banks, and…
On October 12, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed suit against two debt-relief companies and their owners, and a third company that processed payments for and provided other services in connection the debt-relief providers. The complaint alleges violations under the Consumer Financial Protection Act of…
On October 5, 2017 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealed its final rule regulating payday lending. For the past five years, the CFPB had been doing research and seeking comments from the industry on how to address its concerns with what it calls “lending traps” associated with small-dollar lending….
On September 29, 2017, the United States Chamber of Commerce and various business and financial services groups (collectively, Plaintiffs) filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleging that—for four independent reasons—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recently-issued…
On October 4, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interim final rule amending a provision of Regulation X regarding the timing for mortgage servicers to communicate with borrowers about foreclosure prevention alternatives. On the same date, the CFPB also issued a proposed rule regarding timing requirements for…
As Enforcement Watch reported in late September, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it had filed a proposed consent judgment in the United States District Court for Delaware to resolve claims relating to the servicing and debt collection activities on a portfolio of about 800,000 student loans. Under the proposed settlement agreement, the student loan trusts…
On September 27, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a real estate settlement services provider for allegedly steering consumers to an affiliated title insurer without disclosing the relationship, an alleged violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), 12 U.S.C. 2607, and…
On September 18, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it had entered into a settlement and proposed consent judgment with a student loan owner and securitizer, and a separate consent judgment with the securitizer’s debt collector. The securitizer has a loan portfolio of approximately 800,000 student loans. According…
On September 19, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced a simultaneous complaint and proposed consent order with a loan brokerage company and two associated individuals (the “Defendants”). The Defendants are alleged to have made misrepresentations concerning the brokerage and the loan terms they offered to potential borrowers. According to the CFPB,…
On September 8, a federal judge in California ordered a national mortgage services company to pay a $7.9 million civil penalty based on false or misleading marketing statements it allegedly made to consumers about its mortgage loan repayment services. The court, however, denied the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) request for $74 million in restitution, finding that the…
In the second quarter of 2017, Consumer Enforcement Watch tracked 40 enforcement actions taken against consumer financial service providers. This represents a marginal decrease from the 46 enforcement actions taken against consumer financial service providers that we tracked last quarter, and from the 46 enforcement actions tracked in the second…
On September 6, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a lead aggregator over claims the aggregator steered consumers towards lenders who offered installment or payday loans that were illegal in consumers’ states. The consent order claimed that the aggregator sold loan applications to lenders…
On August 30, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had filed a stipulated proposed final judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in a case against a California-based credit repair company. The lawsuit, which was initially filed in September 2016, alleges that the credit repair…
On July 25, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Arbitration Rule from becoming effective with a vote of 231 to 190. The vote was mostly down party lines and paves the way for the Senate to act to impose its own…