On December 19, 2024, the Fair Housing Administration (FHA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a draft Mortgagee Letter proposing a new Optional Reimbursement Claim Alternative (ORCA) program. ORCA is intended to allow mortgagees to seek reimbursement for property tax and insurance payments the mortgagee advances on behalf of forward
On December 17, 2024, amid a flurry of activity by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency released an Issue Spotlight discussing “problems with mortgage companies” that homeowners face “after divorce or [the] death of a loved one.” The report relies on consumer complaints that have been submitted through the CFPB’s complaint portal to
On December 12, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced its final rule, redefining overdraft fees as finance charges in order to limit overdraft fees. The final rule seeks to regulate how overdraft fees are charged and collected in an effort to save consumers money. The CFPB believes the new rule will save
On December 5, 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a joint letter directed at financial service providers to reinforce the importance of interest rate protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The letter underscores the necessity of compliance with these protections while offering practical guidance to
The start of the second Trump administration is fast approaching, and it raises prospects of a renewed push for federal-level fair access to banking requirements. The first Trump administration came close to enacting such a regulation in its last weeks, but the rule was halted by the Biden administration. The financial services industry should not
On October 10, 2024, the financial services community was stunned by the $3.1 billion settlement between the federal government and TD Bank over Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) violations. TD Bank’s criminal guilty plea to conspiracy to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in drug cartel cash overshadowed a contemporaneous enforcement action
Bradley scored a significant victory in the Tennessee Supreme Court on November 14, 2024. In a long-awaited decision, the Tennessee Supreme Court clarified a long-standing inconsistency in Tennessee law with its opinion in Terry Case v. Wilmington Trust. In addition to ushering in a sea change concerning constitutional standing in the state — a
On Thursday, November 21, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a final rule that will soon provide it with supervisory authority over large companies in the general-use digital consumer payment applications market. This rule will become effective 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register and will subject large participants in
On October 22, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized its long-anticipated rule implementing Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The 594-page final rule arrives nearly one year after the CFPB’s proposed rule, which received over 11,000 comments from industry participants concerning its implementation. The rule requires institutions that issue credit cards and hold
On October 10, 2024, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that TD Bank agreed to pay over $1.8 billion in penalties to resolve the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations. When combined with agreements with the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and
