|
ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION
NEWS: June 22 NEWS is brought to you by AFSPA Endorsed SUPPLIERS |
|
Consumer bureau director defends handling of Wells Fargo scandal in face of GOP criticism
The federal government's consumer financial watchdog is defending his handling of the Wells Fargo & Co. unauthorized accounts scandal in the face of Republican charges that the agency failed to catch the problem and has stymied a congressional investigation into how it handled the case.
Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said he is "quite proud" of the team that looked into Wells Fargo's sales abuses.
"Clearly our team, along with our partners, has performed a tremendous public service here," Cordray wrote last week to Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
The letter is the latest salvo in an acrimonious battle between Cordray, a Democrat who heads the powerful agency created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and Hensarling, who has called for President Trump to fire Cordray and is pushing legislation gutting the bureau's power.
Hensarling's bill, which passed the Republican-controlled House on a party-line vote this month, would strip the bureau of its ability to closely monitor financial firms for compliance with consumer protection laws and eliminate public access to the bureau's database of consumer complaints, among other changes.
|
|
Judge raps Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over $15M tug-of war
NEW YORK - And the biggest loser in the legal tug-of-war over $15.14 million up for grabs in a telecommunications settlement is ... the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Ruling on the unusual struggle over the funds involving the CFPB, wireless carrier Sprint, and top legal officials of four states, a federal judge Tuesday rapped the consumer agency for foot-dragging in efforts to decide where leftover funds from a $50 million settlement should be deposited.
"It bears noting that the CFPB's involvement at this juncture in the litigation has been underwhelming," U.S. District Judge William Pauley wrote in a 15-page ruling.
The consumer agency declined to comment.
The decision likely marks the concluding chapter of the curious push-and-pull that ensued after Sprint agreed to a $50 million settlement with the CFPB in 2015. The settlement resolved allegations of cramming - allowing third parties to add unauthorized charges to the cell phone bills of customers. The often-unwitting consumers were socked with fees for clicking on purported "free" content such as ringtones or daily horoscopes.
After identifying the Sprint customers who'd been harmed, the nation's fourth-largest telecom carrier issued roughly $34.9 million in payments, a process that was completed last fall. The outcome left $15.1 million sitting in Sprint's financial accounts.
The settlement terms called for Sprint to remit any remaining funds to the U.S. Treasury. However, the CFPB notified Sprint in December that the attorneys general of Connecticut, Vermont, Indiana, and Kansas had an alternative idea.
Read more at USA TODAY
|
Since Dodd-Frank was enacted, banks and the financial services industry have been in a constant state of "preparation." Preparing for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Examination or Civil Investigation Demand (CID), preparing for a bank examination, or preparing as a vendor for all sorts of other examiners (clients). Prepared, assessed, analyzed and scrutinized. Whatever you call it, the financial services industry has spent years ramping up and building compliance managements systems (CMS), for a variety of inspections, and none of which are completely uniform. Several years later, Dodd-Frank has caused companies to be over-staffed and many companies have had to take a hard look at the cost/benefit of being overly prepared.
The OCC says "Collaborate":
Then it finally happened, a small fissure in the federal hammer, the OCC issued a bulletin that dares to say.... "collaborate." What? Share resources? After all these years of building our own Noah's Ark? Now we can share?
On June 7, 2017, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued Bulletin 2017-21 related to frequently asked questions(FAQs) supplementing OCC Bulletin 2013-29, "Third Party Relationships: Risk Management Guidance" originally issued October 30, 2013 (Bulletin). In the Bulletin, the OCC responds to FAQs relating to third-party oversight. The OCC responds by discussing a novel concept: "collaboration" by banks and third-party service providers.[1]
In its response to the FAQs, the OCC acknowledges that banks may assess different risk levels but admits that collaboration can leverage resources by distributing costs across multiple banks. The OCC opines that being in a "user group" of a particular product can lead to enhancements with the product or service and customer service. The OCC adds that there exists certain "tools" designed to evaluate third parties' security, privacy and business resiliency controls. Perhaps of most importance, is the part where the OCC indicates that collaboration could lead to lower costs.[2] This sharing and collaboration is what we shall denote as the "Bank Sharing Sandbox." The remainder of this article will examine how to operate the Banks Sharing Sandbox.
Read more at FACTORTRUST
|
Need to Acquire More Customers?
Sick of Fraudsters Bringing Down Profits?
Want to Keep Pace with Advances in Technology?
Join Merchant Boost as they highlight how to:
Reduce Consumer Friction
Speed Application Entry
Reduce Online Fraud
Enhanced Identity Data for Invisible Consumers
Create A Competitive Advantage
Improve Target Marketing Efforts
Merchant Boost would like to invite you to our webinar
"How to Leverage the Power of Social Networks
to Increase Lift and Mitigate Fraud"
Tuesday June, 27th 2017 at 2:00 pm EST
AFSPA Members: Can't attend live? You should still register.
We'll be sending out slides and the recording after the webinar to all registrants.
|
Trump Administration Sets Forth Recommendations for Consumer Finance Regulatory Reform. Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
On June 12, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a comprehensive report setting forth the Trump Administration's vision for regulatory reform in the banking sector.1 Specifically, this report focuses on the depository system, covering banks, savings associations, and credit unions of all sizes, types, and regulatory charters. This report responds to Executive Order 13772, which President Donald J. Trump issued on February 3, and which established his Administration's policy to regulate the U.S. financial system in a manner consistent with a set of "Core Principles."2
Along with providing some background on the U.S. depository system, the U.S. financial regulatory structure and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), the report provides a series of findings and recommendations related to bank regulation, consumer lending, and commercial credit. This bulletin focuses on the report's discussion concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), consumer credit, residential mortgage lending, and provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act regarding small business lending. Most of the recommendations concerning consumer credit reflect the Administration's underlying criticisms of the CFPB and the Dodd-Frank Act.
By starting with the premise that the CFPB's "unaccountable structure and unduly broad regulatory powers have led to regulatory abuses and excesses," the report highlights the Administration's belief that the CFPB's approach to enforcement and rulemaking "has hindered consumer choice and access to credit, limited innovation, and imposed undue compliance burdens, particularly on small institutions." The report identifies the following CFPB-related recommendations:
|
|
This past weekend we showed our support at a local '
Relay for Life'
event to
help raise funds and awareness for the fight against cancer.
|
Treasury Report Recommends Keeping Data From Consumers
An agency created to protect the interests of American consumers may be gutted by the Trump administration's pursuits to cut back federal regulations.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created by the Dodd-Frank measures to hold financial institutions accountable for customer grievances about their products, is the latest reform to come under scrutiny.
Conservatives target the CFPB along with other Dodd-Frank regulations in the Financial CHOICE Act, which passed the House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill would prohibit the CFPB from publishing data - which can currently be found here - about the complaints it receives, meaning that consumers would have less information when making financial decisions.
The Treasury department released a report Monday that recommends keeping this data from the public, citing that only government authorities should have access to the information.
Companies have long claimed the bureau is overreaching. The Treasury backed up this viewpoint in the report, saying the CFPB "subjects companies to unwarranted reputational [sic] risks."
Consumer advocates agree that the current database should delineate more clearly between complaints that have been investigated and false accusations, but also make the argument that the bureau should disclose even more data. Read more at FORTUNE
|
Fed's Rosengren: Low interest rates pose financial stability risks
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said on Tuesday that the era of low interest rates in the United States and elsewhere poses financial stability risks and that central bankers must factor such concerns into their decision-making.
"Monetary policy is less capable of offsetting negative shocks when rates are already low," Rosengren said in a speech at a conference on macro prudential policy in Amsterdam jointly organized by the Dutch and Swedish central banks.
In particular, he said, the yield curve will be sensitive to the actions of policymakers when removing monetary accommodation.
"Reach-for-yield behavior can make financial intermediaries and the economy more risky," Rosengren said. He noted financial intermediaries will need to factor in the possibility of lower
rates, particularly during economic downturns, and flatter yield curves.
The Boston Fed chief did not mention the U.S. central bank's decision to raise rates last week or the U.S. economic outlook in his prepared remarks.
Earlier, at the same conference, Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer warned that while the United States and other countries have taken steps to make their housing finance systems stronger, more needs to be done to prevent a future crisis.
Rosengren called on central bankers to factor financial stability into policy making and in their regulatory supervision.
"They have implications for monetary policy responsiveness to negative shocks," he said.
|
|
US TREASURY REPORT A GIFT TO WALL STREET, A THREAT TO CFPB AND EVERYONE ELSE. By Ed Mierzwinski
Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department came out with a report mandated by a Presidential executive order. As feared, the report is a Wall Street wish list, with a few crumbs thrown to small banks (but make no mistake, the Wall Street bankers are hiding behind those small banks). The CFPB and investor protections are left in ruins.
Look no further than the blog of the respected Latino civil rights organization, the National Council of La Raza, for information that the report's finding were preordained:
"These recommendations are not surprising given the Department's lopsided engagement process. As of June, fewer than 15 consumer advocates, including NCLR [and U.S. PIRG], participated in the engagement process by meeting with the Department and commenting on financial regulation, compared to nearly 250 industry and trade groups who gave their input on the proposals. Clearly these recommendations favor Wall Street and do not reflect the perspectives of consumers. If adopted, these recommendations would prove harmful not only to Latinos, but to all American consumers."
At the end of the report, you can see the lists of "fewer than 15" consumer and civil rights groups and 250 banking trade groups.
In his accompanying press release, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin actually goes out of his way to praise the so-called Financial CHOICE Act, which passed the House earlier this month and has largely been panned as a compendium of bad ideas, including by over 150 professors of law. Better termed the Wrong Choice Act, it is considered dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate. Secretary Mnuchin also goes out of his way to claim that both the Treasury report and the Choice Act are primarily about community banks. The only reason for the small bank language is to provide cover for Wall Street.
We explained the importance of the CFPB two weeks ago when we released a report detailing how the CFPB helps protect servicemembers, veterans and their families. Harming the CFPB would put young servicemembers in "financial harm's way," we said. We pointed out weakening the CFPB would also hurt unit preparedness. Why? How? It's a leading cause of revocation of security clearances.
Read more at USPIRG.ORG
|
|
ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION
AFSPA helps our members grow their Alternative Financial Services business by providing them with the best information, research, data, support, relationships and by vetting and presenting the best available product and service providers for the Alternative Financial Services Industry.
|
| Alternative Financial Service Providers Association
757.737.4088 315 Tuscarora St., Lewiston, NY 14092
dan@afspassociation.com
www.afspassociation.com |
|
|
Copyright © 2017. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
