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CSBS Publishes Annual Report
On May 1, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) published its 2013 annual report, which aggregates and reviews the organization’s activities in the prior year, identifies future goals for the organization, and outlines specific priorities for 2014. Those priorities include, among others, continuing to coordinate with federal regulators on cybersecurity and with the CFPB on complaint sharing. The report also includes more detailed reports on past and future activities by various CSBS divisions and boards, including a report from the Policy and Supervision Division that reviews the CSBS’s legislative and regulatory policy positions, and its bank supervision and consumer protection and non-bank supervision activities.
CFPB Proposes Limited Relief From Annual Privacy Notice Delivery Requirements
On May 7, the CFPB issued a proposed rule that would provide financial institutions an alternative method for delivering annual privacy notices. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and Regulation P require financial institutions to, among other things, provide annual privacy notices to customers—either in writing or electronically with consumer consent. Industry generally has criticized the current annual notice requirement as ineffective and burdensome, with most financial institutions providing the notices by U.S. postal mail. The proposed rule would allow financial institutions, under certain circumstances, to comply with the GLBA annual privacy notice delivery requirements by (i) continuously posting the notice in a clear and conspicuous manner on a page of their websites, without requiring a login or similar steps to access the notice; and (ii) mailing the notices promptly to customers who request them by phone.
Specifically, under the CFPB’s proposal, a financial institution subject to the GLBA privacy notice requirements would be permitted to post annual notices online, provided the institution:
- Does not share the customer’s nonpublic personal information with nonaffiliated third parties in a manner that triggers GLBA opt-out rights;
- Does not include on its annual privacy notice a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) § 603(d)(2)(A)(iii) notice regarding the ability to opt out of information sharing with the institution’s affiliates;
- Does not use its annual privacy notice as the only notice provided to satisfy affiliate marketing opt-out notice requirements under section 624 of FCRA;
- Has not changed the information included in the privacy notice since the customer received the previous notice;
- Uses the model form provided in Regulation P; and
- Inserts a clear and conspicuous statement, at least once per year on a notice or disclosure the institution issues under any other provision of law, announcing that the annual privacy notice is available on the institution’s website, such notice has not changed since the previous notice, and a copy of such notice will be mailed to customers who request it by calling a toll-free telephone number.
The CFPB cites the following benefits of the proposed rule:
- Provides consumers with constant access to privacy policies;
- Incentivizes financial institutions to limit their data sharing with unaffiliated third parties;
- Allows consumers who are concerned about their personal information to comparison shop before deciding which financial institution to use; and
- Reduces the cost for companies to provide annual privacy notices.
The proposed rule would provide some relief to industry, particularly where broader bipartisan legislative solutions have failed to gain substantial traction. Last year, the House passed legislation that would fully exempt a financial institution from the annual notice requirement if it (i) provides nonpublic personal information only in accordance with specified requirements, and (ii) has not changed its policies and practices with regard to disclosing nonpublic personal information from its most recent disclosure. A similar Senate bill introduced early last year has not moved forward, though its sponsor, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), pressed the CFPB director about the issue during a hearing last fall.
The CFPB’s proposal will remain open for comment for 30 days following its publication in the Federal Register.
FSOC Annual Report Calls For Heightened Scrutiny Of Nonbank Mortgage Servicers
On May 7, following a short open meeting, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC)—the body established by the Dodd-Frank Act to identify and respond to risks to the stability of the U.S. financial system—released its 2014 annual report. As with past reports, this report reviews market and regulatory developments, and identifies emerging risks to the financial system. Among several new risks identified by the FSOC are those related to the increase in the transfer of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) from banks to nonbank servicers. The report asserts that many nonbank servicers “are not currently subject to prudential standards such as capital, liquidity, or risk management oversight,” and that where mortgage investors’ ability to collect on mortgages is dependent on a single mortgage servicing company, “failure could have significant negative consequences for market participants.” The FSOC recommends that, in addition to continuing to monitor risks associated with transfers to nonbanks, state regulators should work together and with the CFPB and the FHFA on prudential and corporate governance standards for nonbank servicers. The report elevates and reinforces recent regulatory scrutiny of MSRs and nonbank servicers. Earlier this year, the CFPB's deputy director detailed the CFPB's expectations with regard to the transfer of MSRs and compliance with the CFPB's mortgage servicing rules, and New York financial services regulator Benjamin Lawsky expressed his view that nonbank mortgage services are insufficiently regulated and that state regulators need to intervene on the front end of MSR transactions to prevent undue harm to homeowners before it occurs.
CFPB Report Recaps Fair Lending Activities
On April 30, the CFPB published its second annual report to Congress on its fair lending activities. According to the report, in 2013 federal regulators referred 24 ECOA-related matters to the DOJ—6 by the CFPB—as opposed to only 12 referrals in 2012. The report primarily recaps previously announced research, supervision, enforcement, and rulemaking activities related to fair lending issues, devoting much attention to mortgage and auto finance. However, the Bureau notes that it is conducting ongoing supervision and enforcement in other product markets, including credit card lending. The Bureau also identifies the most frequently cited technical Regulation B violations.
With regard to housing finance supervision and enforcement, the CFPB reports that while many lenders have strong compliance management systems and no violations, the CFPB’s ECOA baseline reviews have identified factors that indicate heightened fair lending risk at some institutions, including weak or nonexistent fair lending CMS, underwriting and pricing policies that consider prohibited bases in a manner that presents fair lending risk, and inaccurate HMDA data. The CFPB referred three mortgage-related cases to the DOJ. Two of those involved findings that a mortgage lender discriminated on the basis of marital status; the DOJ deferred to the Bureau’s handling of the merits of both. The third contained findings that a mortgage lender discriminated on the basis of race and national origin in the pricing of mortgage loans. That referral led to a joint DOJ-CFPB enforcement action.
In the area of auto finance, the report highlights the CFPB’s auto finance forum and March 2013 auto finance bulletin, and again defends the CFPB’s proxy methodology, which has been challenged by members of Congress and industry since the CFPB issued its auto finance bulletin. The CFPB states that it is currently investigating whether a number of indirect auto financial institutions unlawfully discriminated in the pricing of automobile loans, particularly in their use of discretionary dealer markup and compensation policies using a disparate impact analysis. During the reporting period, the Bureau made one referral to the DOJ, and subsequently took joint enforcement action with the DOJ against that indirect auto financial institution for alleged violations of ECOA.
The report indicates that the Bureau has expanded its focus beyond mortgage and auto finance, noting that the CFPB is conducting ECOA Baseline Reviews and ECOA Targeted Reviews of consumer financial services providers of other products, singling out credit cards as an example. The report adds that the CFPB also referred to DOJ three matters related to unsecured consumer lending, but that DOJ declined to act upon such referrals.
White House Big Data Review Addresses Discrimination, Privacy Risks
On May 1, the White House’s working group on “big data” and privacy published a report on the findings of its 90-day review. In addition to considering privacy issues associated with big data, the group assessed the relationship between big data and discrimination, concluding, among other things, that “there are new worries that big data technologies could be used to ‘digitally redline’ unwanted groups, either as customers, employees, tenants, or recipients of credit” and that “big data could enable new forms of discrimination and predatory practices.” The report adds, “[t]he same algorithmic and data mining technologies that enable discrimination could also help groups enforce their rights by identifying and empirically confirming instances of discrimination and characterizing the harms they caused.” The working group recommends that the DOJ, the CFPB, and the FTC “expand their technical expertise to be able to identify practices and outcomes facilitated by big data analytics that have a discriminatory impact on protected classes, and develop a plan for investigating and resolving violations of law in such cases,” and adds that the President’s Council of Economic Advisers should assess “the evolving practices of differential pricing both online and offline, assess the implications for efficient operations of markets, and consider whether new practices are needed to ensure fairness.” The working group suggests that federal civil rights offices and the civil rights community should collaborate to “employ the new and powerful tools of big data to ensure that our most vulnerable communities are treated fairly.” With regard to privacy the report states that the “ubiquitous collection” of personal information and data, combined with the difficulty of keeping data anonymous, require policymakers to “look closely at the notice and consent framework that has been a central pillar of how privacy practices have been organized for more than four decades.” Among its policy recommendations, the working group urges (i) enactment of a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, informed by a Department of Commerce public comment process, and (ii) the adoption of a national data breach bill along the lines of the Administration’s May 2011 Cybersecurity legislative proposal. It also calls for data brokers to provide more transparency and consumer control of data.
HUD To Insure Reverse Mortgages Protecting Non-Borrowing Spouses; Senators Seek Protections For Surviving Heirs
On April 25, HUD issued Mortgagee Letter 2014-07, which states that effective August 4, 2014, HUD will apply an alternative interpretation of Subsection 255(j) of the National Housing Act, which HUD has interpreted to limit its reverse mortgage program (HECM) to insuring only those that contain a safeguard to defer repayment of the loan until the homeowner’s death and certain other circumstances. Going forward, HUD also will insure HECMs that contain a provision deferring the due and payable status in the event of the death of the last surviving mortgagor or the death of the last surviving non-borrowing spouse (including common law), if the spouse was identified at the time of closing. HUD states the change will obviate the need for non-borrowing spouses to refinance the loan upon the mortgagor’s death. HUD intends to publish a rule on this issue, but decided to take initial action through a mortgagee letter, as allowed under the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act of 2013.
On April 30, Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Boxer (D-CA) sent a letter to HUD Secretary Donovan following reported allegations that reverse mortgage companies are threatening heirs with foreclosure instead of following HUD’s rules and allowing them to satisfy the loan at 95% of current appraised value. The Senators' letter asks HUD to: (i) issue a mortgagee letter making clear that a matured reverse mortgage loan can be extinguished by the mortgagor, the mortgagor’s estate, or personal representative by paying 95% of the home’s market value; (ii) develop a letter that servicers can send to a borrower’s family members and heirs that outlines options for satisfying the loan; and (iii) enforce existing rules and require that any servicer that fails to offer this option within the required time allow a family member or heir to pay the lower of 95% of the home’s value at the time the loan became due or 95% of the home’s value at the time the error was corrected.
GAO Recommends Enhanced Oversight Of Independent Foreclosure Review Settlements
On April 29, the GAO published a report on its examination of the 2013 amended consent orders that ended the Independent Foreclosure Review process. After testing the regulators' major assumptions, the GAO concludes “that the final negotiated amount generally fell within a reasonable range.” However, the GAO criticizes the regulators for not defining specific objectives for the $6 billion in foreclosure prevention actions required by the settlements, for not analyzing available data, such as servicers' recent volume of foreclosure prevention actions, and for not analyzing approaches by which servicers' actions could be credited toward the total of $6 billion. In addition, the GAO found that while the OCC and the Federal Reserve are verifying servicers' foreclosure prevention policies, they are not testing policy implementation. The GAO believes that without specific procedures, regulators cannot assess implementation of the principles and may miss opportunities to protect borrowers. The GAO recommends that the OCC and the Federal Reserve Board “should define testing activities to oversee foreclosure prevention principles and include information on processes in public documents.” The GAO also believes the regulators should release publicly information on the processes used, such as how decisions about borrower payments were made, and that “[i]n the absence of information on the processes, regulators face risks to public confidence in the mortgage market, the restoration of which was one of the goals of the file review process.”
OCC Proposes Large Bank Assessment Increase
On April 28, the OCC published a proposed rule that would increase assessments on national banks and federal savings associations with total assets over $40 billion. The OCC proposes to increase the marginal assessment rate for such institutions by 14.5% beginning September 30, 2014; specific assessments would range from 0.32% to 14%, depending on the total assets of the institution as reflected on its June 30, 2014 call report. The average increase in assessments for covered institutions would be 12%. The OCC attributes the increased assessments to new supervisory and regulatory initiatives that require additional resources, with most of those resources allotted for large bank supervision and regulation. The OCC notes it did not raise marginal rates on the assets of these institutions between 1995 and 2013, and lowered marginal rates for these institutions in 2008 when it added a new asset bracket for assets in excess of $250 billion. Comments on the proposed rule are due June 12, 2014.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Direct Servicers To Comply With Chicago Vacant Property Settlement
This week, Fannie Mae (Lender Letter LL-2014-03) and Freddie Mac (Bulletin 2014-7) advised servicers of the memorandum of understanding the FHFA recently entered into to resolve litigation with the City of Chicago over a city ordinance that requires mortgagees to register vacant properties and pay a $500 registration fee per property, and provided guidance for complying with the memorandum. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac direct servicers to comply with the MOU by May 12, 2014, including by (i) voluntarily registering vacant properties with the city; (ii) halting remittance of vacant property registration fees, penalties, or fines to the city; and (iii) no longer completing any maintenance required by the ordinance. The guidance also provides instructions for obtaining reimbursement for fees already submitted to the city. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not reimburse servicers for any fees assessed for failing to comply with the ordinance that are incurred on or after May 12.
U.S. House Approves Volcker CLO Fix
On April 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by voice vote HR 4167, a bill that would exclude certain debt securities of collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) from the so-called Volcker Rule’s prohibition against holding an ownership interest in a hedge fund or private equity fund. Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act—the Volcker Rule—generally prohibits insured depository institutions and their affiliates from engaging in proprietary trading and from acquiring or retaining ownership interests in, sponsoring, or having certain relationships with a hedge fund or private equity fund. As implemented, that prohibition would cover CLOs, which banks and numerous lawmakers assert Congress never intended for the Volcker Rule to cover. Earlier in April, the Federal Reserve Board issued a statement that it intends to exercise its authority to give banking entities two additional one-year extensions, which would extend until July 21, 2017, to conform their ownership interests in, and sponsorship of, covered CLOs. HR 4167 instead would provide a statutory solution by exempting CLOs issued before January 31, 2014 from divestiture before July 21, 2017.