House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is asking for a supplemental appropriation for the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network so that it can implement the anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act changes Congress passed last year.
The Biden Administration released a bare-bones funding blueprint for next year and it proposes a 22.2% increase for the Community Development Financial Institutions program, the opposite of Trump Administration budgets which always called for elimination of the program.
Vystar Credit Union agreed to buy Heritage Southeast Bank. The deal will be the credit union industry’s largest-ever bank acquisition and set off a war of words over the credit union tax exemption. VyStar Credit Union and the Credit Union National Association have a few things to say about the Independent Community Bankers of America’s characterization of the deal.
A “GetBanked” campaign in Houston and Atlanta was announced by the FDIC. Its goal is to get unbanked people to open checking accounts in banks.
Reps. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) have introduced legislation that would allow credit unions to expel members without a membership vote and provides a procedure for reinstatement.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is proposing a rule that would stop mortgage servicers from foreclosing on most home loans before December 31, 2021. This follows the agency’s withdrawal of its earlier position that financial services companies would have flexibility in following agency rules during the pandemic. The comment period on the proposed mortgage rule will be open until May 10.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau expects mortgage servicers to follow the regulations that help homeowners keep their homes as pandemic protections end. The CFPB released the criteria on which they plan to evaluate mortgage servicers.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the Small Business Administration has not conducted a comprehensive assessment of the risks of the Paycheck Protection Program because of the need for a rapid execution of the program. The GAO does not consider this an acceptable excuse and noted that an independent auditor reported multiple problems with the loan program.
The Biden Administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is back to a regulatory regime, rescinding a series of pandemic-related policy rollbacks. The pandemic will no longer be an acceptable excuse for failing to follow the CFPB’s consumer protection rules. Agency officials were quite clear about what will be expected of financial institutions going forward.
Brad Thaler, the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions’ Vice President of Legislative Affairs, wrote to members of congressional tax-writing committees to warn them that the Independent Community Banker’s Association wants credit unions taxed to eliminate a source of competition for banks.