On July 10, nineteen Democrat U.S. Senators sent a letter to the CFPB urging it to implement a rule required under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). The rule in question relates to Section of 1071 of Dodd-Frank, which requires the CFPB to collect and make public data on lending to small businesses. [...]
In May, home prices in ten states and the District of Columbia hit new peaks while interest rates remained below 4 percent. In general, the combination of these two factors are expected to fuel strong home purchasing activity. The rise in home prices is being attributed to low supply (CNBC, 7/7/2015): "A complementary rise in the [...]
The CFPB has expanded its publicly available complaints database with the addition of over 7,000 new complaints, including those made from mortgage applicants. An analysis of the newly available complaints highlights how many of the entries were received by larger institutions with nearly half coming from seven lenders (Mortgage Professional America, 6/29/2015): The CFPB released a snapshot [...]
The Supreme Court agreed to settle the issue of whether spousal guarantors should be considered applicants and whether the Federal Reserve has the authority to create regulations to accomplish this under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). Since ECOA does not include guarantors in its definition of applicants, a split has arisen among circuits regarding the [...]
The July 2015 release of CRA performance evaluations by the FDIC offers an example of how the loan-to-deposit (LTD) ratio test can over-shadow satisfactory performance in other tests under CRA. According to FDIC examiners, the LTD ratio for Intercontinental Bank of West Miami, FL did not meet expectations: The average net loan-to-deposit ratio of 21 percent is [...]
According to an analysis of 2013 HMDA data, black and Hispanic applicants from New York City (NYC) were significantly more likely to be denied for a mortgage than white and Asian applicants (Morningstar, 6/19/2015): Black and Hispanic applicants are disproportionately denied conventional loans in New York City, with 33.6 percent and 29.2 percent of applications [...]
Starting as early as July, the CFPB is poised to issue consent orders against three major lenders in automotive financing: American Honda Finance Corp.; Toyota Motor Credit Corp; and Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. These consent orders will require payment to affected consumers and will represent a major victory in the CFPB's efforts to reduce pricing discretion [...]
According to a study commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the recovery following the housing crisis has diverged between minority and non-minority families. While white families showed a stronger recovery during the period of 2009-11, black families continued to see their wealth decline. A principal reason cited for this is the difference in sources [...]
On June 25th, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) permits claims of discrimination based on disparate impact. Put differently, a claim of discrimination based, for example, on race can give rise to liability regardless of the lender’s intent. To succeed with a disparate impact claim under the FHA, the claimant [...]
On April 21, 2015, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) in coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) and Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office South Florida Money Laundering Strike Force. The GTO dircetly affects reporting obligations for many Miami-based businesses, including area financial institutions. The GTO’s [...]
