Top Story Lending Related

This morning, the CFPB announced it has finalized a rule designed to give consumers greater rights, privacy, and security over their personal financial data. The rule will require financial institutions, credit card issuers, and other financial providers to unlock an individual’s personal financial data and transfer it to another provider at the consumer’s request for free.

The Bureau said that consumers will be able to more easily switch to providers with superior rates and services, and, by fueling competition and consumer choice, the rule will help lower prices on loans and improve customer service across payments, credit, and banking markets. The rule also establishes strong privacy protections, requiring that personal financial data can only be used for the purposes requested by the consumer. It ensures that third parties cannot use consumer data for other purposes that benefit the third party, but that consumers do not want. It also helps move the industry away from “screen scraping,” a still common but risky practice that typically involves consumers providing their account passwords to third parties who use them to access data indiscriminately through online banking portals.

Compliance with the rule, which amends 12 CFR Part 1033, will be implemented in phases, with larger providers subject to the rule sooner than smaller ones. Financial firms will be required to comply based on their size; the largest institutions will have to comply by April 1, 2026, while the smallest covered institutions will have until April 1, 2030. Certain small banks and credit unions are not subject to this rule.

• Executive Summary of Rule

The OCC has reported it has finalized revisions to its recovery planning guidelines for certain large insured national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches (banks).

The revisions to the recovery planning guidelines are part of the OCC’s effort to ensure that large banks are adequately prepared for and have developed plans to respond to the financial effects of severe stress, particularly in light of the contagion effects and systemic risks they may pose.

The revisions:

• Expand the recovery planning guidelines to apply to banks with at least $100 billion in assets
• Incorporate a testing standard for recovery plans
• Clarify the role of non-financial risk (including operational and strategic risk) in recovery planning
• Provide covered banks with time frames in which to comply with the recovery planning guidelines, including development of a testing framework and conducting testing

The revisions, published in today's Federal Register at 89 FR 84255, are effective on January 1, 2025, with staggered compliance dates. They will apply to insured national banks, insured Federal savings associations, and insured Federal branches of foreign banks with average total consolidated assets of $100 billion or more.

The FDIC has issued FIL-76-2024 announcing steps intended to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Alaska affected by flooding from August 5 to August 6, 2024. The current list of such areas includes Juneau Borough.

Yesterday, the CFPB announced it has sued student lender Climb Credit, and its largest shareholder 1/0 (“one zero”), for inducing students to take out loans by misrepresenting the quality of the training programs at their partner schools and making false claims about graduates’ hiring rates and salaries. The lawsuit alleges Climb Credit and 1/0 claimed to have vetted its partners’ schools for “outcomes and value” but in fact offered loans for programs that had failed the defendants’ own return-on-investment analysis or which they had not analyzed at all. The lawsuit also alleges that the defendants failed to properly disclose annual percentage rates in online marketing materials and illegally hid loan origination fees in disclosures. The CFPB is asking the court to order Climb Credit and 1/0 to stop their illegal practices, compensate the borrowers they harmed, and pay a civil penalty to the CFPB’s victim relief fund.

The SBA has announced that it has exhausted funds for its disaster loan program after warnings that funding would soon run out following increased demand from Hurricane Helene. Until Congress appropriates additional funds, the SBA is pausing new loan offers for its direct, low-interest, long-term loans to disaster survivors. However, SBA is encouraging individuals and small businesses to continue to apply for loans given assurances from congressional leaders that additional funding will be provided upon Congress’s return in November.

The CFPB has reported that the Bureau and the Justice Department (DOJ) yesterday took action to end Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation’s illegal mortgage lending discrimination against majority-Black neighborhoods in the greater Birmingham, Alabama, area. The CFPB and DOJ allege that Fairway illegally redlined Black neighborhoods, including through its marketing and sales actions. Fairway’s actions discouraged people from applying for mortgage loans in the Birmingham metropolitan area’s Black neighborhoods. If entered by the court, the settlement announced yesterday would require Fairway to pay a $1.9 million civil penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund. Fairway would also be required to provide $7 million for a loan subsidy program to offer affordable home purchase, refinance, and home improvement loans in majority-Black neighborhoods, and pay at least $1 million to serve neighborhoods it redlined.

• Complaint

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have issued a statement on supervisory practices regarding financial institutions affected by Hurricane Milton. The agencies recognize the serious impact of Hurricane Milton on the customers and operations of many financial institutions and will provide appropriate regulatory assistance to affected institutions subject to their supervision. The agencies encourage institutions operating in the affected areas to meet the financial services needs of their communities.

The agencies' statement addresses particularly the areas of lending, temporary facilities, publishing requirements, and regulatory reporting requirements.

The CFPB has posted its beta release of the HMDA Platform for data that will be collected in 2025. The 2025 Beta Platform provides financial institutions and vendors an opportunity to test whether their sample loan/application register (LAR) data comply with the reporting requirements outlined in the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2025.

The Beta Platform can be accessed at https://ffiec.beta.cfpb.gov/filing/. Log in and select 2025 from the dropdown to start testing. Financial institutions can use their log-in credentials from the previous filing periods or, if they have not previously filed data, establish log-in credentials and upload sample 2025 HMDA files to perform validation on their data. Use of this platform (and compliance with HMDA) requires financial institutions to have a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) which uniquely identifies the institution, and that LEI must be recognized by the HMDA Platform. If your institution has not registered for an LEI and intends to file HMDA data, visit the Global LEI Foundation for information on obtaining an LEI.

The FDIC has issued FIL-73-2024 to help financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Arizona affected by the San Carlos Apache Tribe Watch Fire, and FIL-74-2024 to assist banks and facilitate recovery in areas of Florida affected by Hurricane Milton.

NCUA Chairman Todd Harper has commented on the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent settlement with Citadel Federal Credit Union to resolve lending discrimination allegations. Citadel is a $6 billion financial institution in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

“The Justice Department’s settlement with Citadel Federal Credit Union is significant. It signals that federal credit unions must follow fair lending laws. It signals to all communities that discrimination through redlining will not be tolerated. And, it brings communities who have been discriminated against a step closer to an equitable opportunity to access safe, fair, and affordable financial services and to closing the wealth gap.

“The NCUA maintains a strong relationship with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the department’s Combating Redlining Initiative, which investigates potential fair lending violations and helps to end discriminatory lending practices. That productive relationship will continue through our fair lending examination and referral process."

The October 10 press release from the Justice Department said that Citadel has agreed to pay over $6.5 million to resolve allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination by redlining predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in and around Philadelphia. This agreement is the Justice Department’s first redlining settlement with a credit union, making it a historic achievement for the department's Combating Redlining Initiative.