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CFPB Finalizes Rule To Oversee Larger Nonbank International Money Transfer Providers
On September 12, the CFPB finalized a rule that allows it to supervise larger participants in the international money transfer market. In particular, this rule, which finalizes the proposed rule the CFPB issued in January 2014, allows the CFPB to supervise nonbank international money transfer providers that provide more than $1 million in international transfers annually, for compliance with the Remittance Rule under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. The final rule will be effective December 1, 2014.
The CFPB will seek to ensure that these providers comply with a number of specific consumer-protection provisions, including the following:
- Disclosures: The CFPB will examine providers to determine that consumers receive the Remittance Rule-required disclosures in English as well as in any other language the provider uses to advertise, solicit, or market its services, or in any language in which the transaction was conducted. These disclosures inform consumers of the exchange rate, fees, the amount of money that will be delivered abroad, and the date the funds will be available.
- Option to Cancel: The CFPB will examine transfer providers to ensure that consumers receive at least thirty minutes to cancel the transfer if it has not yet been received, and that consumers receive a refund regardless of the reason for the cancellation.
- Correction of Errors: The CFPB will insist that remittance transfer providers properly investigate certain errors, and, if a consumer reports an error within 180 days, the CFPB will examine providers to determine that they have investigated and corrected certain types of errors. The CFPB will also examine providers to ensure that they are held accountable for the actions of any agents they use.
The CFPB used the authority granted to it in the Dodd-Frank Act to supervise “larger participants” in consumer financial markets, and this is the Bureau’s fourth larger participant rule. The CFPB indicates that it will use the same examination procedures for nonbank providers as it does for bank remittance providers, and the CFPB intends to coordinate with state examiners in its supervision.
The CFPB estimates that nonbank international money transfer providers transfer $50 billion each year, and 150 million individual international money transactions occur each year through these institutions, with seven million U.S. households transferring funds abroad each year through a nonbank.
CFPB Offers More Details On Plans To Supervise Auto Finance Market
On September 17, the CFPB released new information about its plans to supervise and enforce auto finance companies’ compliance with consumer financial laws, including fair lending laws. As it indicated it would earlier this year, the CFPB released a proposed rule that would allow it to supervise certain nonbank auto finance companies. Also as previously promised, the CFPB published a white paper on its method to proxy for race and national origin in auto finance transactions. Finally, the CFPB published its most recent Supervisory Highlights report, which is dedicated to its supervisory findings at depository institutions with auto finance operations.
The CFPB released the materials in connection with its September 18th field hearing on auto finance issues. These actions come roughly 18 months after the CFPB first provided guidance to auto finance companies regarding its expectations related to dealer “reserve” (or “participation”) and fair lending.
Larger Participant Rule
The Dodd-Frank Act grants the CFPB authority to supervise, regardless of size, nonbanks offering (i) certain mortgage-related products and services; (ii) private education loans; and (iii) payday loans. The CFPB also has the power to supervise “larger participants” in any other market for consumer financial products or services, provided that it first conducts a rulemaking to define “larger participants” within a particular market.
As proposed, the CFPB’s auto finance larger participant rule would allow the agency to supervise any nonbank finance company that has at least 10,000 aggregate annual originations. The rule would define “annual originations” as grants of credit for the purchase of an automobile, refinancings of such credit obligations and any subsequent refinancings thereof, and purchases or acquisitions of such credit obligations (including refinancings). It would also include “automobile leases” and purchases or acquisitions of automobile lease agreements. The rule would define “automobile” to include “any self-propelled vehicle primarily used for personal, family, or household purposes for on-road transportation” and to exclude “motor homes, recreational vehicles (RVs), golf carts, and motor scooters.”
The CFPB estimates the rule as proposed will allow it to oversee roughly 38 auto finance companies that the CFPB believes “originate around 90% of nonbank auto loans and leases.” As proposed the rule would not apply to title lending or the securitization of automobile loans and leases, but the CFPB requests comment on an approach that would include such activities. The rule also would not apply to auto dealers or to depository institutions.
Comments on the proposal are due 60 days after the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register.
Proxy Methodology White Paper
Since releasing its guidance on auto finance fair lending—which the CFPB has characterized as a restatement of existing law and which sought to establish publicly the CFPB’s grounds for asserting violations of ECOA against bank and nonbank auto finance companies for alleged “discretionary pricing policies”—the CFPB has faced pressure from industry stakeholders and lawmakers who have challenged the Bureau to provide additional information to support its approach to determining disparate impact.
The CFPB now provides additional information regarding one aspect of that approach—its method to proxy for race and national origin in the auto finance market, where such data is not collected as part of the financing process. The white paper reiterates that in conducting fair lending analysis of non-mortgage credit products in both supervisory and enforcement contexts, the CFPB’s Office of Research (OR) and Division of Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending (SEFL) rely on a “Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG)” proxy method. That method combines geography- and surname-based information into a single probability for race and ethnicity. The paper is intended to explain the construction of the BISG proxy currently employed by OR and SEFL and purports to assess the performance of the BISG method using a sample of mortgage applicants for whom race and ethnicity are reported. The CFPB asserts that “research has found that this approach produces proxies that correlate highly with self-reported race and national origin and is more accurate than relying only on demographic information associated with a borrower’s last name or place of residence alone.”
In its paper, the CFPB states that “it does not set forth a requirement for the way proxies should be constructed or used by institutions supervised and regulated by the CFPB” and that the BISG proxy methodology “is not static; it will evolve over time as enhancements are identified that improve accuracy and performance.”
The paper does not address other aspects of the CFPB’s processes or methods used to determine disparate impact, such as (i) the controls applied to ensure sure that the consumers who are being compared are “similarly situated”; or (ii) the basis point thresholds at which the Bureau determines a prohibited pricing disparity exists.
Concurrent with the release of the white paper, the CFPB provided its statistical software code and an example of publicly available census data used to build the race and ethnicity proxy. Of note in its introduction, the CFPB states that it “may alter this methodology in particular analyses, depending on the circumstances involved.”
Supervisory Highlights and CFPB Expectations
Finally, the CFPB released its latest Supervisory Highlights report, which details alleged discrimination in the auto finance market the CFPB has uncovered at banks over the past two years.
The CFPB states that, generally, its examiners found that bank indirect auto creditors “had discretionary pricing policies that resulted in discrimination against African-American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander borrowers. As a result, these borrowers paid more for their auto loans than similarly situated non-Hispanic white borrowers.”
Although it has only publicly announced one enforcement action to resolve such allegations, the CFPB’s report states that non-public CFPB supervisory actions at indirect auto financing institutions resulted in approximately $56 million in remediation for up to 190,000 consumers.
The report again urges auto finance companies to consider three possible ways the CFPB believes institutions can mitigate their fair lending risk by: (i) “monitor[ing] and, if necessary, correct[ing] disparities through a strong compliance management system”; (ii) limiting “the maximum discretionary pricing adjustment to an amount that significantly reduces or eliminates disparities”; or (iii) “compensat[ing] dealers using a non-discretionary mechanism.”
In its press release accompanying the above materials, the CFPB further outlined its expectations for auto finance companies, stating that “given the significance of car ownership in the lives of consumers,” the CFPB expects auto finance companies to:
- Fairly market and disclose auto financing. Specifically the CFPB “would be concerned if consumers are being misled about the benefits or terms of financial products,” and the Bureau is “also looking to ensure that consumers are getting terms they understand and accept.”
- Provide accurate information to credit bureaus. Citing its recent enforcement action against an auto finance company alleged to have inaccurately reported information like the consumer’s payment history and delinquency status to credit bureaus, the CFPB states that it is “looking to prevent inaccurate information from being reported in the future.”
- Treat consumers fairly when collecting debts. The CFPB states that it has received complaints from consumers who claim their vehicles have been repossessed while they are current on the loan or have a payment arrangement in place, and that the CFPB will ensure that collectors are relying on accurate information and using legal processes when they collect on debts or repossess vehicles.
Special Alert: FinCEN Publishes Long-Awaited Proposed Customer Due Diligence Requirements
On August 4, 2014, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") that would amend existing Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) regulations intended to clarify and strengthen customer due diligence (“CDD”) obligations for banks, securities broker-dealers, mutual funds, and futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities (collectively, “covered financial institutions”).
In drafting the modifications, FinCEN clearly took into consideration comments responding to its February 2012 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPRM”), as the current proposal appears narrower and somewhat less burdensome on financial institutions. Comments on the proposed rulemaking are due October 3, 2014.
Overview: Under the NPRM, covered financial institutions would be obligated to collect information on the natural persons behind legal entity customers (beneficial owners) and the proposed rule would make CDD an explicit requirement. If adopted the NPRM would amend FinCEN’s AML program rule (the four pillars) by making CDD a fifth pillar.
Click here to view the special alert.
FinCEN Proposes Customer Due Diligence Rule
On July 30, FinCEN released a proposed rule that would amend BSA regulations to clarify and add customer due diligence (CDD) obligations for banks and other financial institutions, including brokers or dealers in securities, mutual funds, futures commission merchants, and introducing brokers in commodities. The rule would not cover other entities subject to FinCEN regulations that are not already required to have a customer identification program (CIP)—e.g money services businesses—but FinCEN may extend CDD requirements in the future to these, and potentially other types of financial institutions. The proposed rule states that as part of the existing regulatory requirement to have a CIP, covered institutions are already obligated to identify and verify the identity of their customers. The proposed rule would add to that base CDD requirement, new requirements to: (i) understand the nature and purpose of customer relationships; and (ii) conduct ongoing monitoring to maintain and update customer information and to identify and report suspicious transactions. The proposed rule also would add a so-called beneficial ownership requirement, which would require institutions to know and verify the identities of any individual who owns at least 25% of a legal entity, or who controls the legal entity.
FinCEN emphasizes that nothing in the proposal is intended to limit the due diligence expectations of the federal functional regulators or in any way limit their existing regulatory discretion. To that end, the rule would incorporate the CDD elements on nature and purpose and ongoing monitoring into FinCEN’s existing AML program requirements, which generally provide that an AML program is adequate if, among other things, the program complies with the regulation of its federal functional regulator governing such programs. FinCEN does not believe that the new CDD requirements will require covered institutions to perform any additional activities or operations, but acknowledges the rule may necessitate revisions to written policies and procedures. FinCEN also recognizes that financial institutions will be required to modify existing customer onboarding processes to incorporate the beneficial ownership requirement. As such, FinCEN proposes an effective date of one year from the date the final rule is issued. Comments on the proposal are due 60 days from publication of the proposal in the Federal Register.
FDIC Responds To Choke Point Scrutiny With Clarified TPPP Guidance
On July 28, the FDIC issued FIL-41-2014 to clarify its supervisory approach to bank relationships with third-party payment processors (TPPPs). In short, the letter removes the FDIC’s list of examples of merchant categories from its existing guidance and informational article. That list, which identified potential “high-risk” businesses, including firearms and ammunition merchants, coin dealers, and payday lenders, among numerous others, has been scrutinized and challenged by members of Congress in recent months. The new guidance explains the “lists of examples of merchant categories have led to misunderstandings regarding the FDIC’s supervisory approach to TPPPs, creating the misperception that the listed examples of merchant categories were prohibited or discouraged.” The FDIC’s letter continues to defend the list as “illustrative of trends identified by the payments industry at the time the guidance and article were released” and reasserts that it is the FDIC’s policy that insured institutions that properly manage customer relationships are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing services to any customer operating in compliance with applicable law.
CFPB Proposes Rule To Implement Dodd-Frank HMDA Changes
On July 24, the CFPB issued a proposed rule to expand the scope of HMDA data reporting requirements. Section 1094 of the Dodd-Frank Act transferred responsibility for HMDA and Regulation C to the CFPB and directed the CFPB to conduct a rulemaking to expand the collection of mortgage origination data to include, among other things: (i) the length of the loan; (ii) total points and fees; (iii) the length of any teaser or introductory interest rates; (iv) the applicant or borrower’s age and credit score; and (v) the channel through which the application was made. The Dodd-Frank Act also granted the CFPB discretion to collect additional information as it sees fit. The proposed rule would implement all of the new data points required by the Dodd-Frank Act, and also would utilize the CFPB’s discretionary authority to substantially expand the number of new data points required to be reported. In addition, the CFPB’s proposal would require reporting for all dwelling-secured loans, which would include some loans not currently covered by Regulation C, including reverse mortgages, and all home equity lines of credit irrespective of their purpose. The proposal follows a review initiated by the CFPB earlier this year to assess of the potential impacts of a HMDA rulemaking on small businesses. The CFPB released a summary of that review with the proposed rule. Comments on the proposal are due by October 22, 2014. We are reviewing the proposed rule and plan to provide a more detailed summary in the coming days.
FDIC Proposes Changes to Assessments
On July 23, the FDIC proposed a rule to revise its assessments regulation. Specifically, the FDIC proposes changing the ratios and ratio thresholds for capital evaluations used in its risk-based deposit insurance assessment system to conform the assessments to the prompt corrective action capital ratios and ratio thresholds adopted by the prudential regulators. The proposal also would (i) revise the assessment base calculation for custodial banks to conform to the asset risk weights adopted by the prudential regulations; and (ii) require all highly complex institutions to measure counterparty exposure for deposit insurance assessment purposes using the Basel III standardized approach credit equivalent amount for derivatives and the Basel III standardized approach exposure amount for other securities financing transactions. The FDIC explains the changes are intended to accommodate recent changes to the federal banking agencies' capital rules that are referenced in portions of the assessments regulation.Comments are due by September 22, 2014.
New York Revises Proposed Debt Collection Regulations
On July 16, the New York DFS re-proposed a rule to regulate third-party debt collection. The revised proposal: (i) describes disclosures debt collectors must provide to consumers when the debt collector initially communicates with a consumer, and additional disclosures that must be provided when the debt collector is communicating with a consumer regarding a charged-off debt; (ii) requires debt collectors to disclose to consumers when the statute of limitations on a debt has expired; (iii) outlines a process for consumers to request additional documentation proving the validity of the charged-off debt and the debt collector’s right to collect the charged-off debt; (iv) requires debt collectors to provide consumers written confirmation of debt settlement agreements and regular accounting of the debt while the consumer is paying off a debt pursuant to a settlement agreement; (v) requires debt collectors to provide consumers with disclosures of certain rights when settling a debt; and (vi) allows debt collectors to correspond with consumers by electronic mail in certain circumstances. The DFS states that although comments on its initial proposal were “generally supportive,” the revised proposal responds to comments on how the rules could better correspond to the structure of the collection industry, and seeks to clarify the meaning of certain provisions. Comments on the revised proposal are due by August 15, 2014.
FinCEN Closer To Finalizing Customer Due Diligence Proposal
On July 14, the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) concluded its review of a long-awaited FinCEN proposal to establish customer due diligence requirements for financial institutions, sending the rule back to FinCEN. In its spring 2014 rulemaking agenda, Treasury updated the timeline for the rule to indicate it could be proposed in July with a 60 day comment period. OIRA’s public records do not provide information about what, if any, changes OIRA sought or required prior to FinCEN finalizing the proposal. The public portion of the FinCEN rulemaking has been ongoing since February 2012 when FinCEN released an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to solicit comment on potential requirements for financial institutions to (i) conduct initial due diligence and verify customer identities at the time of account opening; (ii) understand the purpose and intended nature of the account; (iii) identify and verify all customers’ beneficial owners; and (iv) monitor the customer relationship and conduct additional due diligence as needed. FinCEN subsequently held a series of roundtable meetings, summaries of which it later published.
Federal, State Prudential Regulators Issue HELOC Guidance
On July 1, the OCC, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the NCUA, and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors issued interagency guidance on home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) nearing their end-of-draw periods. The guidance states that as HELOCs transition from their draw periods to full repayment, some borrowers may have difficulty meeting higher payments resulting from principal amortization or interest rate reset, or renewing existing loans due to changes in their financial circumstances or declines in property values. As such, the guidance describes the following “core operating principles” that the regulators believe should govern oversight of HELOCs nearing their end-of-draw periods: (i) prudent underwriting for renewals, extensions, and rewrites; (ii) compliance with existing guidance, including but not limited to the Credit Risk Management Guidance for Home Equity Lending and the Interagency Guidelines for Real Estate Lending Policies; (iii) use of well-structured and sustainable modification terms; (iv) appropriate accounting, reporting, and disclosure of troubled debt restructurings; and (v) appropriate segmentation and analysis of end-of-draw exposure in allowance for loan and lease losses estimation processes. The guidance also outlines numerous risk management expectations, and states that institutions with a significant volume of HELOCs, portfolio acquisitions, or exposures with higher-risk characteristics should have comprehensive systems and procedures to monitor and assess their portfolios, while less-sophisticated processes may be sufficient for community banks and credit unions with small portfolios, few acquisitions, or exposures with lower-risk characteristics.