InfoBytes Blog
Filter
Subscribe to our InfoBytes Blog weekly newsletter and other publications for news affecting the financial services industry.
CFPB Deputy Director Addresses Community Bank Advisory Council on Financial Data Usage
On April 25, CFPB Deputy Director David Silberman addressed the Community Bank Advisory Council (CBAC) in Washington, D.C. on the Bureau’s work involving the use of data in the financial marketplace. CBAC was established almost five years ago to ensure that the Bureau had a direct line of communication with community banks. The Bureau is focused on understanding “how consumers are exercising control over their personal financial data, including the data that is maintained by their financial institutions.” In November of last year, the CFPB issued a Request for Information (RFI) regarding ways to “address the risks and technological challenges posed when consumers seek ready access to this data and seek to share it electronically with third parties.” The Bureau’s goal is to evaluate how to balance consumer needs without exposing the providers that maintain this data to undue costs and risks, while also making sure consumer data is not misused.
Silberman discussed the use of new types of data to assess the creditworthiness of consumers when applying for credit. The Bureau is exploring the possibility that “thoughtful and responsible use of alternative data—that is, data that is not part of the traditional credit reporting system—could expand the credit available to underserved consumers.” (See previous InfoBytes summary.) In February 2017, the CFPB issued another RFI to seek feedback about the “potential benefits and risks of using, applying, and analyzing unconventional sources” such as rent or utility payments to “assess people’s creditworthiness.” Silberman acknowledged community banks’ skill and “willingness to go beyond the numbers” in order to make lending decisions based on the totality of information they have available about their customers. The Bureau is exploring ways to combine the objectivity and rigor of automated underwriting with the community banks approach.
Special Alert: CSBS Sues OCC Over Fintech National Bank Charter
On April 26, 2017, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) initiated a lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the OCC’s statutory authority to create a special purpose national bank (SPNB) charter for financial technology (fintech) companies.
Prior to this lawsuit, CSBS had publicly opposed the fintech SPNB charter on numerous occasions, asserting last month that the OCC has acted beyond the legal limits of its authority and that providing SPNB charters to fintech companies “exposes taxpayers to the risk of inevitable FinTech failures.”
In the press release announcing the lawsuit, CSBS President John Ryan referred to the OCC’s action as “an unprecedented, unlawful expansion of the chartering authority given to it by Congress for national banks,” and stated that “if Congress had intended it to be used for another purpose, it would have explicitly authorized the OCC to do so.”
Citing violations of the National Bank Act (NBA), Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and the U.S. Constitution, CSBS seeks declaratory and injunctive relief that would declare the fintech SPNB charter to be unlawful and prohibit the OCC from taking further steps toward creating or issuing an SPNB fintech charter, without express Congressional authority.***
Click here to read full special alert.If you have questions about the charter or other related issues, visit our Financial Institutions Regulation, Supervision & Technology (FIRST) and FinTech practice pages for more information, or contact a Buckley Sandler attorney with whom you have worked in the past.
CFPB Fines Servicemember Auto Lender for Violating Consent Order
On April 26, the CFPB issued a second consent order against an Ohio-based auto lender, specializing in extending credit to servicemembers, for violating an earlier 2015 consent order issued by the Bureau (see previous InfoBytes summary). The 2015 order required, among other things, that the lender to pay restitution of over $2 million to affected consumers in addition to a $1 million civil money penalty for allegedly engaging in unfair, abusive, and deceptive debt collection practices. The 2017 consent order claims the lender violated the earlier order by failing to provide the required consumer redress or the redress plan consistent with the 2015 consent order. The Bureau contends that the lender issued worthless account “credits” to settled-in full accounts and to consumers whose debts were discharged in bankruptcy, and failed to provide the appropriate redress to consumers making payments under settlement agreements. The consent order requires that the lender: (i) pay an additional $1.25 million civil money penalty; (ii) pay $718,900 to the Bureau, which will be sent as refunds to consumers; (iii) issue $372,157 in account credits to consumers who have account balances, in addition to properly crediting consumers making payments under settlement agreements; and (iv) pay $75,000 in redress-administration costs to the Bureau.
CFPB Monthly Complaint Snapshot Highlights Issues Related to Student Loans
On April 25, the CFPB released its monthly complaint report highlighting consumer complaints year-to-date April 1. The Bureau has handled approximately 1,163,200 consumer complaints across all categories since it began collecting complaints. Of the roughly 28,000 received in March, 2,033 focused on private and federal student loans. Common problems raised by student borrowers included:
- lost documentation, extended application processing time, and unclear guidance when enrolling in income-driven repayment plans;
- misapplied payments, such as overpayments being applied to all accounts instead of being applied to a specific account;
- confusion over Public Student Loan Forgiveness programs and other loan forgiveness programs, specifically regarding enrollment issues, payment problems, and issues due to inaccurately reported employment data; and
- credit reporting companies receiving incorrect data, resulting in negative scores or collection companies contacting consumers about accounts that were paid in full or for debts that were not owed.
Similar to past CFPB-issued complaint snapshots, the report identifies the top 10 most common complaint categories with respect to all financial products, as well as the top 10 companies for which they received the most student loan complaints. The report spotlighted Nevada, noting that (i) Nevada consumers have submitted 14,600 of the 1,163,200 complaints received; (ii) debt collection complaints accounted for 29 percent of complaints received from Nevada, exceeding the national average by 2 percent; and (iii) mortgage-related complaints accounted for 23 percent of all complaints submitted by Nevada consumers, a rate equal to the national rate of mortgage complaints.
NY AG Schneiderman Releases Guidance on Student Loan Cancellation
On April 21, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman released guidance for eligible individuals who attended certain programs operated by a group of for-profit post-secondary education California-based colleges. The colleges—which ceased operations in 2015—allegedly made misrepresentations about the employment success of graduates of certain programs and used “false promises of career success to lure students, leaving many with enormous debt and few job prospects.” As a result, students who enrolled in those programs during specified time periods are eligible for the discharge of their federal student loans. It is estimated that up to 3,000 students in New York are eligible for federal loan cancellations based on the findings of an investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). New York joins 43 other states and the District of Columbia in an outreach effort to assist students in submitting loan cancellation applications. If a student’s application is approved by the DOE, the loan(s) will be cancelled and payments previously made will be refunded.
Maryland and Tennessee Expand Use of Reporting Requirements for Money Services Businesses
As previously covered by InfoBytes, the Nationwide Licensing System (NMLS) for Money Services Businesses (MSBs) recently unveiled the MSB Call Report that standardizes and streamlines routine reporting requirements for state-licensed MSBs. On April 18, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed into law HB 182, which requires specified licensees to obtain and maintain a valid unique identifier and transfer licensing information to the NMLS. The law will go into effect July 1, 2017. Among those who must now register with NMLS are check cashers, collection agencies, consumer lenders, debt management service providers, credit service businesses, and sales finance companies. Licenses for mortgage lenders, mortgage originators, and money transmitters are already processed through NMLS. The Commissioner of Financial Regulation is charged with establishing a time period that is “not less 2 months within which a licensee must transfer licensing information to the NMLS.” Furthermore, at least 30 days before the transfer period begins, the Commissioner shall notify all licensees of the transfer period and provide instructions for the transfer of licensing information to NMLS.
On April 12, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam enacted SB 1202, authorizing Tennessee’s Department of Financial Institutions to license industrial loan and thrift companies, title lenders, and individuals regulated under the Check Cashing Act or the Premium Finance Company Act through a multi-state automated licensing system. The law allows for the sharing of information—subject to specified confidentiality requirements—with state and federal regulatory officials having consumer finance industry oversight authority or finance industry oversight. Licenses for these types of entities will expire on December 31 of each year. The law includes staged effective dates, the first being July 1, 2017.
Two Telecom Executives Pay FCPA Penalties
Two former executives of a Hungarian telecommunications company recently agreed to settle their FCPA claims with the SEC and pay related penalties, along with five-year bars against serving as an officer or director of any SEC-registered public company. The company’s former CEO agreed to pay a $250,000 penalty, while its former Chief Strategy Officer agreed to pay a $150,000 penalty. The settlements are still subject to court approval.
The SEC’s case against these individuals was heading to trial this month prior to this week’s settlement. The SEC’s complaint alleged that these individuals used sham contracts to funnel millions of dollars in bribes to foreign officials in Macedonia and Montenegro to win contracts and, importantly, block out competitors including U.S.-traded telecoms. This action was related to similar claims previously brought against the company and its majority owner, who settled civil and criminal FCPA charges in December 2011 for $95 million. In February 2017, another former executive settled FCPA charges, agreeing to pay a $60,000 penalty without admitting or denying the charges.
These settlements underscore the FCPA’s broad territorial and jurisdictional reach, which can encompass transactions that facially do not even involve U.S. companies. As the SEC’s Stephanie Avakian noted, these individuals were ultimately charged because they “spearhead[ed] secret agreements with a prime minister and others to block out telecom competitors,” and “[the SEC] persevered in order to hold these overseas executives culpable for corrupting a company that traded in the U.S. market”.
Senators Introduce Combating Global Corruption Act of 2017
Senator Ben Cardin and Republican co-sponsors recently introduced a bill titled the “Combating Global Corruption Act of 2017,” which seeks “to identify and combat corruption in countries, to establish a tiered system of countries with respect to levels of corruption by their governments and their efforts to combat such corruption, and to assess United States assistance to designated countries in order to advance anti-corruption efforts in those countries and better serve United States taxpayers.”
This bill, if enacted, would require the Secretary of State to publish annual rankings of foreign countries split up into three tiers that depend on whether those countries’ governments comply with “minimum standards for the elimination of corruption.” The introduced bill defines corruption as “the exercise of public power for private gain, including by bribery, nepotism, fraud, or embezzlement.”
Once a country’s tier-rank is established, the bill would then require the Secretary of State, Administrator of USAID, and the Secretary of Defense to take various steps, including the creation of a “corruption risk assessment” and “corruption mitigation strategy” for U.S. foreign assistance programs; fortified anti-corruption and clawback provisions in contracts, grants and other agreements; disclosure of beneficial ownership for contractors and other participants; and mechanisms to investigate misappropriated funds.
If passed into law, this bill would create substantial new enforcement powers to combat international corruption activities. And, unlike the current ambiguity under the FCPA regarding its applicability to state-owned or state-controlled enterprises (“SOEs”), as drafted, this bill expressly would cover SOEs. Like the FCPA, however, this bill also contains a broad national security waiver component, if the Secretary of State “certifies to the appropriate congressional committees that such waiver is important to the national security interest of the United States.”
DOJ Voices Continued Support for Robust FCPA Enforcement
On April 24, 2017, in a speech at the Ethics and Compliance Initiative Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Jeff Sessions appeared to commit to the continued aggressive enforcement of the FCPA. He noted that bribery "increases the cost of doing business and hurts honest companies that don’t pay these bribes,” and he explained that the Trump administration’s DOJ will enforce laws that protect honest businesses: “One area where this is critical is enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Congress enacted this law 40 years ago, when some companies considered it a routine expense to bribe foreign officials in order to gain business advantages abroad.” AG Sessions also emphasized that individuals, not just companies, may face increased FCPA focus.
These remarks come on the heels of comments from another senior DOJ official who recently noted that robust FCPA enforcement will continue. As previously reported, Trevor McFadden, the DOJ’s Criminal Division's Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, noted that the DOJ remains "intent on creating an even playing field for honest businesses."
These remarks suggest that the DOJ will remain active in enforcing FCPA compliance issues, despite comments from then-candidate Trump that FCPA enforcement may be scaled back under his watch.
CFPB Provides Resources for Consumers During Money Smart Week
On April 22, the CFPB highlighted a series of consumer education resources as part of its participation in Money Smart Week—(April 22-29)—and Financial Literacy Month. The CFPB blog post is here. Among the financial decision-making resources are: (i) Ask CFPB—an online tool that the Bureau states will provide “clear, unbiased” answers to common financial questions; (ii) Owning a Home—a tool that provides resources for homebuyers; and (iii) Money as You Grow—a resource center where parents can find activities and conversation starters to help children build money skills. In addition, the Bureau also advised consumers that there are numerous free financial education classes and seminars conducted by local and regional organizations covering a variety of money-management topics such as buying a house, credit management, saving for college, and financing retirement. Consumers should visit Money Smart Week to find events and online resources.