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.
Citing the pandemic, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is proposing to delay by 60 days the effective dates of debt collection rules that were issued by the Trump Administration last year. The agency is seeking public comment on the proposal, but the proposal first must be published in the Federal Register.
The Internal Revenue Service’s portal to provide information to consumers about their federal coronavirus Economic Impact Payments is providing inaccurate information to many financial institutions and their customers, creating confusion for everyone involved, trade groups said last week.
“The information provided by the portal is often inaccurate, causing confusion for recipients because it is not updated in a sufficiently timely manner, resulting in erroneous messages to recipients,” groups including the Credit Union National Association, the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America, wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
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.