Welcome to the Compliance Cohort. We are a group of compliance professionals working to make compliance easier. Our goal is to take complex compliance concepts and put them in simple terms that apply to the real world. We are glad you have found us and look forward to collaborating in the future.
If you haven't done so already, make sure you sign up for our free membership where you get access to many member-only videos, articles, and other resources.
In this Compliance Clip, Adam discusses the importance of integrating FinCEN's national priorities into financial institutions' BSA/AML/CFT risk assessments, highlighting recent proposals from FinCEN and regulatory agencies aimed at updating compliance requirements. Adam provides ways on how financial institutions can proactively incorporate these priorities into their risk assessments. A transcript of this video is now available.
On October 15, 2024, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) renewed its Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) that require US title insurance companies to identify natural persons behind shell companies used in non-financed purchases of residential real estate. The terms of the GTOs are effective beginning October 16, 2024, and ending on April 14, 2025.
On October 15, 2024, the CFPB and the DOJ took action against Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation for illegal mortgage lending discrimination against majority-Black neighborhoods in the greater Birmingham, Alabama area. According to the CFPB and DOJ, Fairway illegally redlined Black neighborhoods, including through its marketing and sales actions, by discouraging people from applying for mortgage loans in the Birmingham metropolitan area’s Black neighborhoods.
On October 10, 2024, the OCC announced a cease and desist order and a $450 million civil money penalty against TD Bank, N.A. and TD Bank USA, N.A., for deficiencies in the bank’s BSA and AML compliance program. The OCC determined that the bank failed to develop and maintain a BSA/AML program reasonably designed to assure and monitor compliance with the BSA and its implementing regulations.
In early October, the CFPB released its HMDA Beta Platform for data that will be collected in 2025. The 2025 HMDA Beta Platform allows financial institutions and vendors to test whether their sample loan/application register (LAR) data comply with the reporting requirements outlined in the Filing Instructions Guide for HMDA data collected in 2025.
On October 7, 2024, the OCC announced that it is soliciting academic research papers on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in banking and finance. The deadline to submit paper is December 15, 2024.
On October 7, 2024, the CFPB published a new edition of Supervisory Highlights describing the agency’s supervisory findings related to illegal practices in auto finance, including lenders repossessing consumers’ cars after the borrower made timely payments or received loan extensions. The report also highlights significant problems with add-on products that are packaged at the front-end of the auto loan, increasing the loan costs, and then not properly refunded at the back end upon early loan termination, when the consumer can no longer use the products.
On October 4, 2024, the CFPB published three threshold changes. Two of the threshold changes relate to Regulation Z while one change relates to consumer leasing under Regulation M. The changes were based on the 3.4 percent increase in CPI-W as of June 1, 2024.
On October 3, 2024, the OCC issued a bulletin to provide banks with guidance for managing credit risk associated with refinance risk. The bulletin applies to all banks with commercial loans and does not address other risks, such as interest rate risk.
On October 1, 2024, the OCC released its bank supervision operating plan for fiscal year 2025, which begins on October 1, 2024, and ends on September 30, 2025. The plan provides the foundation for policy initiatives and for supervisory strategies as applied to individual national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches, federal agencies, and technology service providers. The OCC staff will use this plan to guide their supervisory priorities, planning, and resource allocations.
