All Things FinReg

LATEST REGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS IMPACTING
THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced on May 14 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) are extending their moratorium on foreclosures and evictions until at least June 30, 2020. We had discussed the original moratorium, which was set to expire on May 17, in a previous blog post. The foreclosure moratorium applies to GSE-backed, single-family mortgages only.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced on April 21 that servicers’ obligation to advance scheduled monthly payments for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) backed single-family mortgage loans in forbearance will be limited to four months.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on March 18 that they have directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), to suspend foreclosures and evictions for at least 60 days due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) national emergency.
A recent legal conference in Washington, DC, highlighted newly proposed and ongoing regulatory changes in California concerning consumer and commercial lending. In short, one of the conference’s messages was that lending enforcement is increasing and the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) is becoming much more aggressive in its enforcement posture (including with respect to treating retail installment sales contracts and merchant cash-advance products as loans).
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
In a recent post, we discussed the increasing focus by state attorneys general on the use of their enforcement authority against payment processing applications platforms that were not licensed under state money transmitter laws. As we pointed out, one of the challenges raised by these state laws is the fact that they are not uniform in either their language or how they are interpreted or applied.
A working group composed of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a joint statement on July 22 that is intended to provide greater clarity regarding the risk-focused approach used by examiners for planning and performing Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) examinations.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently issued guidance consolidating current FinCEN regulations, rulings, and guidance about cryptocurrencies and money services businesses (MSBs) under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).
The Federal Reserve Board (Fed) released on April 23 a notice of proposed rulemaking to clarify the standards and criteria under which one company “controls” another company under the Bank Holding Company Act (BHCA) and the Savings and Loan Holding Company Act (SLHCA).