Washington Federal Bank, NA pays HMDA penalty

The CFPB has issued a consent order against Washington Federal Bank, N.A., for errors in its mortgage-loan data for 2016 and 2017 in violation of HMDA and Regulation C.

The consent order states:

• An internal audit of Respondent’s 2016 HMDA LAR identified 40 files containing errors in a review of 100 files, a 40% error rate.
• The 2016 HMDA errors were caused by a lack of appropriate staff, insufficient staff training, and ineffective quality control.
• A Bureau review of 84 files in Respondent’s initial 2017 HMDA LAR identified 58 errors in 27 files, a 32% sample error rate.
• The 2017 HMDA errors are directly related to weaknesses in Respondent’s compliance-management system (CMS), especially in the areas of Board and management oversight, monitoring, and policies and procedures.
• With respect to Respondent’s resubmitted 2017 HMDA LAR, the Bureau reviewed 81 files and identified 21 errors in 13 files, a 16% sample error rate.
• In connection with its 2017 LAR resubmission, Respondent imposed an incorrect policy, which directly led to the errors in its resubmitted LAR.
• The occurrence of errors in many different fields, rather than concentrated in one or two fields, indicates broad CMS failures and a lack of adequate resources, because the errors were not caught, and the errors cannot be directly attributed to one or two systemic failures
• The Bureau entered a consent order against Respondent on October 9, 2013, finding that Respondent violated HMDA and Regulation C. The 2013 consent order required Respondent to review, correct, and resubmit its 2011 HMDA LAR and imposed a $34,000 penalty.