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SBA gives guidance on collecting PPP processing fees
On May 21, the Small Business Administration (SBA) released a procedural notice detailing the Form 1502 reporting process through which lenders will be able to collect the processing fees on eligible Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The SBA will pay lenders’ processing fees for PPP loans, based on the balance of the loan at the time of full disbursement, in the following amounts: (i) five percent for loans of not more than $350,000; (ii) three percent for loans of more than $350,000 and less than $2 million; and (iii) one percent for loans of at least $2 million. Lenders are required to report to the SBA on Form 1502 loans have been fully disbursed or canceled. Form 1502 should be submitted electronically to the SBA by the later of (i) May 29, or (ii) 10 calendar days after disbursement or cancellation of the PPP loan. (This is an updated deadline that was recently reflected in the SBA’s FAQs and was first announced in an interim final rule regarding disbursements under the PPP, covered by InfoBytes here.)
The SBA will begin accepting 1502 reports on fully disbursed or cancelled PPP loans on May 22. Lenders will not receive a processing fee payment if the loan is canceled before disbursement or if a disbursed loan is canceled or voluntarily terminated but repaid before May 18 (the borrower certification safe harbor date). As detailed in the procedural notice, lenders will be required to create an account in the Fiscal Transfer Agent Lender portal to access and submit Form 1502. The procedural notice includes, among other things, specifics on account creation and reporting. Additionally, the procedural notice contains useful questions and answers, including how the processing fees will be disbursed and when processing fees may be subject to clawbacks from the SBA.
CFPB: March and April set records for most complaints
On May 21, the CFPB issued a consumer complaint bulletin analyzing complaints the Bureau has received during the Covid-19 pandemic. The bulletin analyzes complaints mentioning “COVID, coronavirus, pandemic, or CARES Act” that were received as of May 11. Of the over 143,000 complaints the Bureau has received in 2020, 4,541 complaints were related to Covid-19. Highlights of the bulletin include: (i) overall, the Bureau had the highest complaint volumes in its history in March and April at 36,700 and 42,500, respectively; (ii) mortgage and credit cards are the top complaint categories for Covid-19 complaints; (iii) eight percent of complaints submitted by servicemembers were Covid-19 related compared to five percent of non-servicemembers; and (iv) after the emergency declaration, the weekly average complaint volume for prepaid cards grew 84 percent, while the volume for student loans decreased by 19 percent. Among other things, the bulletin includes breakdowns of complaint volumes by consumer financial products and examples of common issues from complaint narratives that mention a Covid-19 keyword.
Treasury designates Chinese GSA for providing support to Iranian airline
On May 19, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated a China-based company pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 for allegedly acting as a general sales agent (GSA) for or on behalf of an Iranian airline. According to OFAC, this is the seventh time a GSA has been designated to the airline since 2018, which was previously designated under E.O.s 13224 and E.O, 13382 for providing support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. OFAC emphasized that entities operating in the airline industry “should conduct due diligence to avoid performing services, including GSA services, for or on behalf of a designated person, which may be sanctionable,” and referred the industry to a 2019 advisory that outlined potential civil and criminal consequences for providing unauthorized support to or for designated Iranian airlines.
As a result of the sanctions, “all property and interests in property of [the GSA] that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC.” OFAC further noted that its regulations “generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons,” and warned foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitating significant transactions or providing significant financial services to designated individuals may subject them to U.S. correspondent account or payable-through sanctions.
Auto financing company settles multistate subprime lending action for $550 million
On May 19, the California attorney general, along with 33 other attorneys general, announced a multistate $550 million settlement with an auto sales financing company for allegedly placing subprime borrowers in auto loans that carried a high risk of default, in violation of state consumer protection laws. Specifically, California’s complaint alleges that the company violated the state’s Unfair Competition Law by, among other things, (i) extending auto loan credit to borrowers the company knew or should have known were likely to result in default and repossession; (ii) failing to disclose to borrowers the high risk of failure associated with the loans; (iii) requiring borrowers to make payments through methods that resulted in third-party fees; and (iv) misrepresenting borrowers’ ability to acquire repossessed vehicles already sent to auction. Additionally, the attorney general alleges that the company “turned a blind eye” to dealer abuse, resulting in higher origination prices for borrowers.
According to the press release, the company will pay approximately $433 million in forgiveness of loans still owned by the company across the U.S. and will waive deficiency balances for borrower loans that the company no longer owns. Notably, certain borrowers who had defaulted as of December 31, 2019 but were still in possession of their vehicle will be allowed to keep the vehicle and have the deficiency balance on the loan waived. California’s settlement also requires injunctive measures such as (i) requiring the company to consider the borrower’s ability to repay the loan; (ii) barring the company from purchasing loans where the borrower’s residual income is zero or negative; (iii) setting reasonable debt to income ratios; and (iv) no longer requiring dealers to sell ancillary products.
In addition to California, the multistate settlement includes: Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington, who together with Attorney General Becerra comprise the executive committee; as well as the attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.
District court allows class autodialer claims to proceed against mortgage lender
On May 18, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied a request to dismiss a putative class action concerning alleged violations of the TCPA, ruling that the plaintiff plausibly alleged the mortgage lender (defendant) sent unsolicited texts through the use of an automatic telephone dialing system (autodialer). The plaintiff claimed, among other things, that (i) the texts came by way of SMS short codes, which are “reserved for automatically made text messages”; (ii) the messages were generic and non-personal; (iii) the messages followed a similar calling pattern; and (iv) the plaintiff continued to receive them after opting out. The defendant countered that the claims should be dismissed because the plaintiff’s argument is “devoid of plausible allegations” under the TCPA that it used an autodialer that has the capacity to produce telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. However, the court determined that, in the absence of direction from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit “as to the kind of supporting factual allegations that must be included to sufficiently allege the [autodialer] element of a TCPA case,” the court will follow other district courts that have allowed TCPA suits to continue if the plaintiff sufficiently alleges facts to plausibly support a finding that an autodialer was used.
FTC announces $40 million settlement with payment processor in credit card laundering case
On May 19, the FTC filed a complaint against a large payment processing company and its former executive for allegedly participating in deceptive or unfair acts or practices in violation of the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) by processing payments and laundering, or assisting in the laundering of, credit card transactions targeting hundreds of thousands of consumers. The FTC’s complaint alleges, among other things, that the payment processing company received and ignored repeated “warnings and direct evidence” dating back to 2012 showing that the former executive was using his company to open hundreds of fake merchant accounts and shell companies, and allowed him to continue to open merchant accounts until 2014. According to the FTC, the “schemes included, but were not limited to, a debt relief scam that used deceptive telemarketing, business opportunity scams that used deceptive websites, and a criminal enterprise that used stolen credit card data to bill consumers without their consent” in which the both defendants received fees for processing the scheme’s payments. The FTC also claims that the payment processing company violated its own anti-fraud policies by failing to adequately underwrite, monitor, or review its sales agents and their risk management processes, and failed to timely terminate the merchant accounts involved in the scheme.
The payment processing company’s proposed settlement imposes a $40 million monetary judgment and prohibits the company from assisting or facilitating TSR and FTC Act violations related to payment processing. Additionally, the company will be required to (i) screen and monitor prospective restricted clients; (ii) establish and implement a written oversight program to monitor its wholesale independent sales organizations (ISO); and (iii) hire an independent assessor to monitor the company’s compliance with the settlement’s ISO oversight program.
The former executive’s proposed settlement imposes a $270,373.70 monetary judgment, and bans him from payment processing or acting as an ISO for certain categories of high-risk merchants. He is also prohibited from credit card laundering activities, making or assisting others in making false or misleading statements, and assisting or facilitating violations of the FTC Act or TSR.
Neither defendant admitted or denied the allegations, except as specifically stated within the proposed settlements.
SBA clarifies PPP eligibility for foreign affiliates
On May 21, the SBA recently published an interim final rule (IFR), which addresses the eligibility requirements related to employees of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) borrower’s foreign affiliates. The SBA reiterated in the IFR that a small business must include foreign affiliate employees when calculating how many people it employs for purposes of determining if the business meets the PPP eligibility requirement of 500 or fewer employees. The SBA acknowledged, however, that previous guidance (covered by InfoBytes here) may have created “reasonable borrower confusion,” so in “an exercise of enforcement discretion,” the agency reiterated that the “SBA will not find any borrower that applied for a PPP loan prior to May 5, 2020 to be ineligible based on the borrower’s exclusion of non-US employees from the borrower’s calculation of its employee headcount if the borrower (together with its affiliates) had no more than 500 employees whose principal place of residence is in the United States.” The SBA further determined that these borrowers will “not be deemed to have made an inaccurate certification of eligibility solely on that basis.”
The IFR takes effect upon publication in the Federal Register and is applicable to PPP applications submitted through June 30, 2020, or when program funding is exhausted. Comments are due within 30 days.
FDIC updates FAQs for financial institutions affected by Covid-19
On May 20, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) updated its frequently asked questions issued to financial institutions affected by Covid-19 (previously covered here, here, and here). The updated FAQs provide guidance on Community Reinvestment Act requirements, including, among other things, (i) whether Covid-19-affected states and jurisdictions are considered CRA designated disaster areas, (ii) how activities undertaken in response to Covid-19 that are responsive to community needs will be considered in CRA examinations, and (iii) whether bank loans made under the Paycheck Protection Program or Main Street Lending Program are eligible for CRA consideration.
Arizona regulator implements adjusted renewal process
The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions announced the implementation of a new license renewal process that will enable licensees to renew licenses of the parent licensee and its branches at the same time. Previously, licensees were required to complete renewal at the parent level, and then repeat the process for each branch. The department is currently in the first phase of the project, which will cover renewals for advance fee loan brokers, debt management companies, and sales finance companies, which have licenses expiring in June 2020.
State attorneys general send letter to auto manufacturers regarding Covid-19 practices
On May 20, a coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter to ten major auto manufacturers relating to reports that dealerships have been engaging in predatory and harmful practices in connection with the return of leased vehicles during the Covid-19 pandemic. The coalition calls upon auto manufacturers to ensure that their financing arms and affiliated dealerships have appropriate controls to timely accept the return of leased vehicles during the pandemic. Further, car dealerships are urged to take certain steps, such as reviewing their lease-return policies for compliance with applicable law, assisting consumers with convenient lease returns, and refunding harmed consumers for certain costs arising from refused lease returns.