All Things FinReg

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau or CFPB) on January 13 issued a Statement Regarding the Provision of Financial Products and Services to Consumers with Limited English Proficiency (Statement), which is intended to provide compliance principles and guidelines to inform and assist financial institutions in their decisionmaking related to serving limited English proficiency (LEP) consumers in non-English languages.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a final rule on October 27 that determines when a national bank or federal savings association (bank) makes a loan and is the “true lender” in the context of a partnership between a bank and a third party, such as a marketplace lender.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) on October 20 issued a final rule to extend the government-sponsored enterprises patch (GSE Patch), i.e., the “temporary qualified mortgage” exemption within the qualified mortgage/ability-to-repay rule.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued a policy statement on October 5 establishing a process to allow for early termination of consent orders.

California’s governor is expected to sign into law soon a bill creating a state consumer financial protection agency, the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), which some have called California’s “mini-CFPB.” We reported previously on the importance of this law in January and March.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued a final rule on June 25 that reaffirms the enforceability of the interest rate terms of loans made by state-chartered banks and insured branches of foreign banks (collectively, state banks) following the sale, assignment, or transfer of the loan. The rule also provides that whether interest on a loan is permissible is determined at the time the loan is made, and is not affected by a change in state law, a change in the relevant commercial paper rate, or the sale, assignment, or other transfer of the loan. The final rule follows the FDIC’s proposed rule on this topic, and will take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued an interim final rule (IFR) on June 23, 2020 that temporarily permits mortgage servicers to offer to borrowers impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic certain loss mitigation options based on the evaluation of an incomplete loss mitigation application.

On June 18, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued a procedural rule to launch a new pilot advisory opinion (AO) program to publicly address regulatory uncertainty in the Bureau’s existing regulations. The pilot AO program will allow entities seeking to comply with regulatory requirements to submit a request where uncertainty exists, and the Bureau will then select topics based on the program’s priorities and make the responses available to the public.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a final rule on May 29 clarifying that when a national bank or national savings association sells, assigns, or otherwise transfers a loan, interest permissible before the transfer (the maximum rate permitted in the bank’s home state) continues to be permissible after the transfer.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a settled action on April 22 with Canadian company RevenueWire (the Company) and its CEO to resolve allegations that the Company assisted and facilitated two tech-support scams that the FTC had previously targeted. Under the alleged scheme, consumers were marketed tech support services to “fix” nonexistent computer problems, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars of consumer injury.