On October 10, 2024, the CFPB banned private dispute resolution platform Ejudicate from arbitrating disputes about consumer financial products after the company misled student borrowers about its neutrality and initiated sham arbitration proceedings. The CFPB found that Ejucate was actually a debt collection for Prehired, a company permanently shut down in 2023 for illegal lending practices.

On October 23, 2024, FinCEN issued an alert to assist financial institutions in identifying and reporting suspicious activity supporting Lebanese Hizballah (Hizballah), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The alert builds upon the agency’s May 2024 advisory on Iran-backed terrorist organizations and offers a comprehensive overview of Hizballah’s global criminal financial networks.

On October 18, 2024, FinCEN published a final rule in the Federal Register to clarify an exemption under the beneficial ownership information reporting rule that FinCEN published on September 30, 2022. The rule modifies the language exempting certain public utilities from the definition of “reporting company” in the beneficial ownership information reporting rule to more clearly implement the language of the exemption found in the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).

On October 17, 2024, the FDIC announced that it is providing financial institutions additional time to get new processes and systems in place by extending the compliance date for the new FDIC signage and advertising rule from January 1, 2025, to May 1, 2025.  The extension applies only to a portion of the final rule designed to modernize the rules governing the use of the official FDIC signs and advertising statements, that is Part 328, subpart A.

VIDEO: Incorporating FinCEN Priorities into Risk Assessment

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 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.