On March 23, 2017, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) announced an enforcement action with Santander Holdings USA, Inc. and its majority-owned subsidiary, Santander Consumer USA, Inc. This action will require Santander to strengthen its compliance risk management program and improve the oversight by the Board and senior management of the lender’s subprime auto-lending unit. While [...]
As eluded to last week in a disclosure via a financial report filing, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) formally announced a penalty against Nationstar Mortgage for violations under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The CFPB’s order requires that Nationstar: pay a record $1.75 million penalty for the alleged HMDA violations; fix HMDA reporting [...]
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced Friday, March 9th, that it has reached an agreement with Alpine Bank & Trust resolving allegations that the Northern Illinois-based lender discriminated against African American and Hispanic mortgage applicants. The agreement stems from a complaint filed with HUD by HOPE Fair Housing Center of Wheaton, Illinois, [...]
Nationstar Mortgage disclosed (HousingWire, March 9, 2017) that it is facing a potential fine related to violations under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The disclosure, made in its 2016 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, acknowledges that it is currently in negotiations with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding the payment amount for [...]
On March 1, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a forfeiture action on First National Bank of Williamson in the amount of $1.36 million related to violations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The action concerned structuring transactions that occurred between April 2006 and November 2008. The subject customer admitted in court that the [...]
On February 27, 2017, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a Consent Order to Merchants Bank of California, N.A. This Order included an Order for a Civil Money Penalty of $1 million. This Consent Order is the third from the OCC to Merchants Bank since 2010. In 2010, 2014, and now, [...]
Western Union, the largest money service business in the world, agreed to a half-billion dollar settlement over charges they failed to protect customers from fraud and permitted their agents to illegally launder money for customers. Western Union will pay a $586 million fine after pleading guilty to charges of willfully failing to run an effective anti-money laundering [...]
JPMorgan Chase announced (USA Today, 1/18/2017) that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. government to pay $55 million to settle allegations that the firm violated Fair Lending laws. According to the lawsuit, the government alleged that, from 2006 through 2009, the bank's wholesale mortgage brokers charged African American and Hispanic borrowers higher interest rates than white, [...]
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against KleinBank on January 13th, alleging that KleinBank engaged in unlawful “redlining” of majority-minority neighborhoods in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleges that from 2010 to at least 2015, the bank structured its residential mortgage lending [...]
On December 28, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement reached with two Ohio-based banks regarding allegations of redlining. The complaint alleges that the two banks – Union Savings Bank and Guardian Savings Bank – avoided lending to and opening branches near residents in predominantly African-American neighborhoods for the period of 2010 through [...]
