On July 29, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a settlement with a bank concerning allegations that they denied loan approval to a woman on maternity leave in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The woman had applied for a home equity line of credit, but the bank allegedly told…
On July 14, 2016, the CFPB announced that it ordered a bank to pay $10 million in fines for its overdraft service practices. According to the CFPB, the bank’s telemarketing vendor used allegedly deceptive marketing and sales pitches to mislead consumers to sign up for its overdraft service without the consumers’ consent. The overdraft…
On June 8, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it entered into a settlement agreement with a national bank over allegations the bank engaged in discriminatory lending practices in violation of the Fair Housing Act. According to HUD, the bank discriminated against African American, Latino American and…
On June 6, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it filed a lawsuit against a third-party payment processor and two of the company’s executives over allegations the company permitted unauthorized withdrawals from consumer accounts, in violation of the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act. The company facilitated ACH payment transactions between…
On June 6, 2016, the West Virginia Attorney General announced a settlement with a regional online lender over allegations that the lender’s business practices violated West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act. The company markets and sells online installment loans, through an alleged “bank-partnership model.” Under the bank-partnership model, a company partners…
On May 25, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) entered a consent order with a national bank stemming from allegations that the bank violated a 2011 consent order concerning its mortgage servicing related activities. The OCC alleged that the bank had violated the consent order during the period from October 1,…
On April 1, 2016, the California Attorney General announced that it filed suit against a prominent investment bank for alleged “misrepresentations about complex investments such as residential mortgage-backed securities, in which large pools of home loans were packaged together and sold to investors.” The eight-count complaint, which was filed in…
On February 5, 2016, the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 49 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia’s attorney general announced a $470 million settlement with a national bank to address alleged mortgage origination, servicing, and foreclosure abuses. …
On February 1, 2016, the FDIC announced that it reached a settlement with a Utah State nonmember Bank for $250,000, to resolve allegations of deceptive and unfair acts and practices under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act for “failing to adequately inform consumers of promotion plan requirements concerning…
On February 1, 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a $1.9 million settlement with a Tennessee bank for alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA). According to a complaint filed with HUD, the bank “denied loan applications submitted by African American and Hispanic borrowers…
On December 23, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced that it settled claims against a Delaware bank alleging unfair, deceptive, unsafe, and unsound acts and practices in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act (Section 5). According to the FDIC, the bank violated Section 5 by “failing to provide promised protections to…
On November 20, 2015, the CFPB published its current rulemaking agenda. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, the CFPB drafts and implements new regulations governing certain consumer finance products and services. The CFPB publishes its regulatory agenda twice a year, which summarizes the proposed regulations (or “rules”) the Bureau is…
On November 3, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its Supervisory Highlights report detailing the Bureau’s supervision efforts for May through August of 2015. The report summarizes the violations of consumer protection laws the Bureau observed during the four-month period and identifies the areas in which the Bureau has…
On September 24, 2015, the CFPB and the DOJ announced a settlement with a regional bank over allegeatoins that it engaged in redlining practices in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). According to the complaint, the bank allegedly discriminated against minorities by systematically preventing residents of certain minority neighborhoods from…
On September 22, 2015, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System announced the execution of a settlement in an enforcement action against a regional bank concerning an alleged violation of the National Flood Insurance Act (NFIA), 42 U.S.C. § 4012a(f)(4). The Board of Governors asserted that where a pattern or practice of violations of…
On September 11, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a citation to a national bank for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC rules and regulations. According to the citation, the bank allegedly requires its online banking and Apple Pay customers to consent to receiving autodialed telemarketing…
On August 21, 2015, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced that it had concluded its investigation into several related national banks regarding alleged violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The Act prohibits certain debt collection activities against members of the armed forces. Before proceeding with judicial…
On August 19, 2015, the New York Attorney General’s Office announced an interim agreement with a subsidiary of a national banking organization over allegations that the bank charged improper fees on customer’s inactive accounts. The bank managed consumer investment accounts and charged a variety of fees for account management services….
On August 12, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), had entered into several consent orders with affiliated regional banks over allegations concerning consumer bank deposits. According to the consent orders,…
On August 5, 2010, the American Bankers Association (ABA) announced that it had sent a letter to federal regulators and enforcement agencies, requesting that they confirm in their “interagency guidance, updated exam procedures, and where appropriate amended regulations” that the burden-shifting framework used by the Supreme Court in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v….