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The NCUA has released its Quarterly Credit Union Data Summary for the quarter ending March 31, 2024.

According to the report, total assets in federally insured credit unions rose by $96 billion, or 4.4 percent, over the year ending in the first quarter of 2024 to $2.31 trillion. During the same period, total loans outstanding increased $71 billion, or 4.6 percent, to $1.60 trillion. Insured shares and deposits rose $40 billion, or 2.3 percent, to $1.77 trillion, from one year earlier. The delinquency rate at federally insured credit unions was 78 basis points in the first quarter of 2024, up 25 basis points compared with the first quarter of 2023.

Credit unions with assets over $1 billion were required to provide information on overdraft and NSF fees collected during the quarter. There were 443 credit unions that provided that information, with total assets of $1.781 trillion for the group. Those CUs reported $915.6 million in overdraft and NSF fees for the quarter. Forty-five of those CUs reported $0 in NSF fees. Twenty-five reporting CUs showed no overdraft fees, and nine CUs reported they collected neither NSF nor overdraft fees during the quarter.

The FDIC has issued FIL-32-2024 with guidance to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of Arkansas — Benton, Boone, and Marion Counties — affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding May 24–27, 2024.

The FDIC has issued its June 2024 list of banks examined for CRA Compliance, which includes 61 financial institutions whose CRA evaluation ratings were assigned in March 2024. Fifty-three of those evaluations were rated Satisfactory. Four banks' evaluations were rated Outstanding:

• Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, The, Hyannis, Massachusetts
• Medallion Bank, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Stock Exchange Bank, The, Woodward, Oklahoma
• Tustin Community Bank, Tustin, California

Four of the banks' evaluations were rated Needs to Improve:

• Century Bank of Kentucky, Inc., Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
• First Bank of Ohio, Tiffin, Ohio
• Milestone Bank, Salt Lake City, Utah
• United Savings Bank, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The OCC has released 19 CRA evaluations that became public in May for national banks and federal savings associations. Eleven of those institutions received rating of Satisfactory. Eight institutions received ratings of Outstanding:

• PNC Bank, National Association, Wilmington, Delaware
• First National Bank, Cloverdale, Indiana
• United Fidelity Bank, F.S.B., Evansville, Indiana
• Industrial Commercial Bank of China (USA), National Association, New York, New York
• Keybank National Association, Cleveland, Ohio
• Texas National Bank, Mercedes, Texas
• Community National Bank, Derby, Vermont
• Hilltop National Bank, Casper, Wyoming

The Federal Reserve Board's archive of CRA evaluations of state member banks shows that the Reserve Banks made public ten CRA evaluation in May. Eight of those evaluations were rated Satisfactory, and Outstanding ratings were assigned to:

• Bank of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii
• First State Bank, Anadarko, Oklahoma

The FDIC has posted its Community Reinvestment Act examination schedules for the third and fourth quarters of 2024.

The CFPB has reported it has sued student loan servicer Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), which does business as American Education Services (AES), for illegally collecting on student loans that have been discharged in bankruptcy and sending false information about consumers to credit reporting companies. The CFPB’s lawsuit asks the court to order PHEAA to stop its illegal conduct, provide redress to borrowers it has harmed, and pay a civil penalty.

PHEAA is a student loan servicer with its principal office in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It is a public corporation organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of December 2023, PHEAA serviced a portfolio of student loans worth roughly $17.8 billion.

The United States Bankruptcy Code provides consumers a financial fresh start by discharging debts and prohibiting creditors from collecting on discharged debts. Many student loans, both federal and private, can be discharged in bankruptcy only if a borrower initiates a separate proceeding and meets a more stringent legal standard than is applied to other debts. However, certain private student loans are discharged in normal bankruptcy proceedings like other unsecured consumer debt. These “non-qualified” private student loans include money borrowed to pay for tuition at schools that do not qualify for federal Title IV funding, such as unaccredited trade or K-12 schools, loans for medical and dental residency, loans to students attending school less than half-time, or loans where the loan amount was higher than the cost of attendance (which can occur when a loan is disbursed directly to a consumer).

AES services a range of private student loans, including those that have strict discharge requirements in bankruptcy and non-qualified loans that are routinely discharged. Nevertheless, when a consumer with private student loans serviced by AES receives a bankruptcy discharge, the company’s practice is to treat all of that consumer’s education-related loans as not discharged, unless it receives an explicit court order or other express direction from the loan owner.

In March 2023, the CFPB issued a bulletin warning the industry about this issue, detailing how supervisory examinations had found some student loan servicers illegally returning loans to collections after bankruptcy courts had discharged the loans.

The CFPB's complaint alleges that, between 2017 and 2021, AES collected or attempted to collect on approximately 7,934 private student loans after a bankruptcy proceeding. Although discovery in litigation will reveal the total scope of PHEAA’s unlawful collection activity, the Bureau says at least 177 were loans eligible for discharge in bankruptcy. Borrowers were thus subjected to illegal collections on loans they did not owe. AES also furnishes inaccurate information to credit reporting companies regarding borrowers’ outstanding debt, which causes financial harm to consumers and may make it harder to qualify for other credit in the future.

This is the CFPB’s second public enforcement action against PHEAA this year. On May 6 the CFPB filed a complaint and proposed stipulated judgment, which, if approved by the court, would require PHEAA and the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts to pay more than $5 million for student loan servicing failures, including failing to provide accurate information to borrowers and incorrectly denying forbearance requests.

The Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, and OCC on Friday jointly issued state loan-to-deposit ratios that are used to evaluate compliance with the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act. Each respective host state loan-to-deposit ratio shows the ratio of total loans in a state to total deposits in the state for all banks that have that state as their home state. These ratios replace those issued in May 2023.

By law, a bank is generally prohibited from establishing or acquiring branches outside of its home state primarily for the purpose of acquiring additional deposits. This prohibition seeks to ensure that interstate bank branches will not take deposits from a community without the bank also reasonably helping to meet the credit needs of that community.

• Section 109 Host State Loan-to-Deposit Ratios

The FDIC has issued a list of nine enforcement decisions and orders issued in April 2024.

• An order to pay a $13,000 civil money penalty for flood insurance rules violations was issued to CNB Bank, Carlsbad, New Mexico
• Consent orders were issued to —
  • Spring Valley Bank, Wyoming, Ohio
  • Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Commodore Bank, Somerset, Ohio
  • The First Bank and Trust Company of Murphysboro, Murphysboro, Illinois (Corrected order)
• A notice of intention to prohibit and notice of charges for an order of restitution and assessment of a civil money penalty was issued to Derrick Alan Smith, formerly a community banking branch banker at Branch Banking and Trust Company (now known as Truist Bank), Charlotte, North Carolina
• An order of prohibition assessing a $7,000 civil money penalty was issued to Cody Kietzman formerly employed by The Frederick Community Bank, Paxton, Illinois
• An order of prohibition was issued to David P. Ritter formerly employed by Summit Community Bank, Inc., Moorefield, West Virginia
• An order approving the termination of FDIC insurance was issued to Interstate Federal Savings and Loan Association of McGregor, McGregor, Iowa

The OCC has released its schedule of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) evaluations to be conducted in the third (July–September) and fourth (October–December) quarters of 2024.

The FDIC has issued Financial Institution Letters with guidance to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in areas of—

• Boyd, Carter, Fayette, Greenup, Henry, Jefferson, Jessamine, Mason, Oldham, Union, and Whitley Counties in Kentucky (FIL-28-2024) affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, landslides, and mudslides on April 2, 2024.
• Adair, Montgomery, Polk, and Story Counties in Iowa (FIL-29-2024) affected by severe storms causing significant property damage May 20–21, 2024.
• Boone, Cabell, Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, Marshall, Nicholas, Ohio, Putnam, Wayne, and Wetzel Counties in West Virginia (FIL-30-2024) affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, flooding, landslides, and mudslides caused significant property damage April 2–6, 2024.