#NSF

29 01, 2024

CONSUMER55

2024-01-29T15:15:54-05:00January 29th, 2024|1- Financial Services Management|

NSF Fees

The CFPB has followed up a controversial proposal to set prices for larger-bank overdrafts exempt from certain consumer standards with a proposal to simply ban certain non-sufficient fund (NSF) fees when banks decide in real time to decline a consumer-payment request.  The Bureau readily acknowledges that banks in fact generally do not now charge NSF fees in these cases, but it fears they might and wishes to preemptively prohibit this as part of the Administration’s campaign against “junk fees.”  Although the rule is aimed principally at electronic declinations, it would apply to check and ACH transactions as declination capability grows via instant-payment system adoption.

CONSUMER55.pdf

24 01, 2024

Daily012424

2024-01-25T10:33:20-05:00January 24th, 2024|2- Daily Briefing|

FSB Plans Resolution Refinement, New Repo Standards

Renewing much of what it has said in the past, the FSB today released its 2024 official work program. Although the FSB’s head said earlier this week that current FSB resolution standards suffice, global standards are still set to be finalized for resolution reforms, which include a toolkit for CCP resolution authorities to be completed in May as well as publication of a list of insurers subject to the resolution planning standards in December.

CFPB Goes After Fees Banks Have Yet to Charge

Tackling fees it acknowledges banks have yet even to charge, the CFPB today proposed banning NSF fees for real-time non-processed transaction declines such as those at ATMs.

Senate Advances “Nuclear” Asset-Seizure Option

Following a 40-0 vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today voted 20-1 (Paul, R-KY) for S.2003, legislation giving the White House clear authority to seize frozen Russian assets to assist Ukraine.

Daily012424.pdf

7 12, 2023

DAILY120723

2023-12-07T16:42:01-05:00December 7th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

BIS: CCP Collateral Holdings Pose Systemic Risk

A new BIS study looks at the risk that the transformation of OTC markets to centrally-cleared ones has in turn transformed markets based in part on know-your-counterparty into those dependent principally on collateral backing margin positions – an inherently more fragile market structure.

White House Presses FHLB Affordable-Housing Action

In remarks today, National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard not only highlighted the Biden Administration’s actions to address housing affordability, but also mentioned plans for new financing programs.

Ambitious CFPB Regulatory Plans Come Into View

The CFPB’s fall 2023 regulatory agenda provides status updates for several significant rulemaking items.

Basel to Set IRR, Window-Dressing, Crypto Standards

The Basel Committee’s year-end meeting advanced plans to address interest-rate risk (IRR) with a concrete agreement to issue a new consultation later this month updating current global IRR standards (see FSM Report IRR7).

BIS Points to MMF Risk When Rates Rise

Another new BIS paper concludes that the record size of MMFs poses significant threat to dollar-funding market stability.

OCC Warns Banks of AI Risk, Possible Supervisory Action

Reflecting growing Congressional, regulatory, and industry concerns over AI, today’s OCC semiannual risk assessment for federal banks states that national banks should be mindful of AI risks as these fall under current supervisory procedures.

Senate GOP Goes for Gruenberg’s Jugular

Despite efforts by the FDIC to reassure critics about its independent investigation, Senate Banking Republicans today fired off a ferocious letter demanding that FDIC Chair Gruenberg immediately resign …

26 07, 2023

DAILY072623

2023-07-26T16:37:20-04:00July 26th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

Senate Democrats Stand Firm On “Junk Fee” Campaign

Today’s lightly-attended Senate Banking Financial Institutions Subcommittee hearing on banking and consumer fees showcased broad Democratic alignment with the Administration’s “junk fees” campaign and persistent Republican aversion to this effort as well as to the CFPB.

CFPB Flags UDAAP, Other Problematic Practices for Enforcement

The CFPB’s latest supervisory report not only details recent actions and priorities, but also expressly stipulates that certain activities identified in the course of supervision that have yet to be addressed by formal agency action are UDAAP.

SEC Targets AI Advice

Acting as anticipated following Gary Gensler’s fiery talk last week about AI risk, the SEC today voted 3-2 to propose new rules curtailing what it believes to be broker dealer and investment-adviser conflicts of interest due to predictive analytics.

Crypto-Jurisdiction Bill to Advance; Stablecoin Measure Likely to do so Tomorrow

Chairman McHenry (R-NC) and Ranking Member Waters (D-CA) announced at today’s HFSC markup that bipartisan negotiations on the committee’s stablecoin bill continue and despite the absence of any breakthrough.

DOJ Officials Seeks Merger Answers

In remarks today, Policy Director David Lawrence of DOJ’s Antitrust Division went beyond new, draft DOJ/FTC merger guidelines (see FSM Report MERGER12) to lay out questions on which the agencies particularly seek answers.

Powell Stresses Bank Discount Window Readiness

FRB Chairman Powell’s press conference today focused almost entirely on monetary policy, but the chair agreed that the discount window performed badly during the recent crisis and that banks need to …

11 07, 2023

DAILY071123

2023-07-11T16:38:06-04:00July 11th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

FRB-NY Staff: Climate Tradition Risk Meaningful, Manageable

new blog post from Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff concludes that climate-transition risk in bank loan portfolios is meaningful, but also manageable.  The paper uses general-equilibrium models to focus on forward-looking climate risk in scenarios based on current policy as well as orderly and disorderly transitions, an approach it believes differ from much retrospective analysis of carbon emissions as a measure of transition risk.

CFPB, OCC Team Up To Sanction BofA Transaction, Card Account Practices

The CFPB and OCC today took action against Bank of America in ways that renew questions about potential overlaps between the CFPB’s jurisdiction and that of the banking agencies.  The costlier of the two actions from the CFPB ordered the bank to pay over $170 million in civil monetary penalties and restitution for a range of practices the Bureau regards as abusive and deceptive (see FSM Report CONSUMER39).

GOP Urges Supreme Court to Uphold Fifth Circuit CFPB Decision

Continuing the GOP’s longstanding campaign to redesign the CFPB, HFSC Chairman McHenry (R-NC), Senate Banking Ranking Member Scott (R-SC), and 130 Members of Congress filed an amicus brief today urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision declaring the CFPB’s funding mechanism unconstitutional.

Daily071123.pdf

5 04, 2023

DAILY040523

2023-04-05T16:55:56-04:00April 5th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

FDIC Joins CFPB Targeting UDAP

The FDIC today published Consumer Compliance Supervisory Highlights showing that UDAP violations related to NSF representment constituted the second highest number of total citations and were by far the largest number of serious citations in 2022.  The FDIC reiterates August guidance that third-party arrangements related to re-presented items may present numerous risks.  We note that the FDIC’s UDAP focus is new under Chairman Gruenberg and comes at a time when the CFPB is expanding the reach of its own UDAAP enforcement powers with a focus in part on overdrafts and NSF practices.

IMF Staff Highlight New Systemic Risk: Geopolitical Stress

At a panel event today, IMF staff reported that their model-based study in the IMF’s global financial stability report found that geopolitical risks and global fragmentation gravely threaten financial stability by weakening interconnectivity between geopolitical blocs.  Their model found that increased fragmentation results in reduced cross-border banking between blocs, higher lending costs, substantial diversification losses among G7 countries, and reduced bank profitability.  Staff also drew a link between the war in Ukraine and the recent banking crisis, arguing that the war’s inflationary pressures led to an aggressive monetary policy reaction, revealing bank vulnerability to interest rate risk.

Daily040523.pdf

8 03, 2023

DAILY030823

2023-03-08T17:06:14-05:00March 8th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

HFSC Plans Broad Attack, Limited Legislation to Rewrite Administration Crypto Standards

The HFSC staff memo makes it clear that the Digital Asset Subcommittee hearing on Thursday will be a strong general GOP attack on Biden Administration crypto policy and specific campaign against the SEC’s enforcement-focused strategy.

HFSC Plans to Blast CFPB, Press Limited Change

Thursday’s HFSC Monetary Policy Subcommittee hearing on the CFPB is sure to be a raucous, partisan affair judging by the staff memo describing it.  Republicans have strongly objected to the Bureau before its inception, with concerns sharply heightened by a series of recent actions under Director Chopra.

CFPB Slams Fees, Promises Mercy

Ahead of a meeting later today between senior White House officials, Director Chopra, and hundreds of state legislators concerning the President’s “junk fee” agenda, the CFPB  today released Supervisory Highlights focusing on recent instances of what it deems unlawful junk fees in deposit accounts, auto loan servicing, mortgage servicing, payday lending, and student loan servicing.

GAO Doubts Fintech’s Inclusion Advantage

The GAO today released a report finding that fintech may enhance inclusion, but that this inclusion comes at risk due to the patchwork of rules governing firms offering products – e.g., wage advances – that may put vulnerable households at risk.

HFSC Republicans Scrutinize SEC Rulemaking, Fed Climate Policy

As anticipated, today’s HFSC Subcommittee Hearing with the inspectors-general for the FRB, CFPB, Treasury, and SEC focused on GOP attacks on the SEC’s IG vacancy and the CFPB’s funding mechanism.

Brown, Others Demand ABA

19 08, 2022

Al082222

2023-01-04T11:09:21-05:00August 19th, 2022|3- This Week|

A Payment System Premised on Peccadillos? 

As we noted at the start of this month, August may seem quiet, but that’s only because Congress is more or less muffled.  Regulators remain busy, with the CFPB a-churn with new actions.  Our in-depth analyses of the Bureau’s new digital-marketing rule (see FSM Report FINTECH30) and data-safeguards standards (see FSM Report INFOSEC28) make clear that the CFPB never sleeps.  Bank regulators are also wakeful, with the most recent evidence of this to be found in the FDIC’s NSF-fee clamp down and the Fed’s supervisory cryptoasset statement and striking new payment-system access policy (see FSM Report PAYMENT25).  As our in-depth analysis describes, this policy could well redefine winners and losers across the entire spectrum of U.S. financial services.

Al082222.pdf

18 08, 2022

DAILY081822

2023-01-04T11:25:52-05:00August 18th, 2022|2- Daily Briefing|

CFPB Plans to Change Credit-Card Filings

The CFPB is seeking comments on revisions to reports it receives on credit-card terms and those related to certain cobranding agreements.  Although the new data are not described, the Bureau is likely planning to gather more information supporting its campaign to limit “junk fees, (see FSM Report CONSUMER38), govern credit-card late fees (see FSM Report CREDITCARD35), and otherwise restructure this sector.

IMF Blog: Climate Finance Should Blend Public/Private Sectors

An IMF blog post today by its managing director Kristalina Georgieva and Tobias Adrian advocates for blending public and private sector finance as a way of de-risking climate finance.  Advocating options that pose challenges under both U.S. law and longstanding-policy tradition, the Fund recommends public-sector equity investments and credit enhancements, highlighting additional financing practices it says would reduce impediments to private capital such as public-private partnerships, multi-sovereign guarantees, and separate underwriting for risks such as political instability.

FDIC Takes Concrete Anti-Overdraft Action

Although the CFPB has blasted overdraft fees and Acting Comptroller Hsu has suggested that they may pose supervisory concerns, the FDIC today took concrete action against them.  In a new supervisory edict, it announced that state nonmember banks receiving multiple NSF fees for the same transaction risks supervisory sanction because such fees are unsafe and unsound.

Daily081822.pdf

20 07, 2022

DAILY072022

2023-01-06T14:31:13-05:00July 20th, 2022|2- Daily Briefing|

Fed Study: Mortgage Churning for CRA Adversely Affects LMI Mortgage Market

A new Fed staff paper revisits one of the longstanding questions with CRA regulation: whether allowing equal CRA credit for mortgage originations and purchases increases LMI-focused mortgage finance.  Critics of past CRA rules have argued that mortgage purchases are “churning” – i.e., the same loans are bought and sold across the marketplace at the time of each bank’s CRA examination.

Comment Deadline Extended for CFPB Relationship Banking RFI

The Federal Register today provides a 30-day comment period extension for the CFPB’s Relationship Banking RFI (see FSM Report CONSUMER43).  Comments are now due August 22.  As noted, the Bureau has inferred that preserving relationship banking requires “human touch” rapid responses to consumer inquiries that will ensure high-quality banking services are available in all markets.

CFPB Blog: Overdraft/NSF Policy Changes Reduced Fees

Expanding on its December 2021 report, a CFPB blog post today concluded that overdraft and NSF policy changes led to significant reductions in the amount bank customers incur from various account fees.  The post provides two tables — one displaying overdraft/NSF revenue and the other showing ATM fees — across multiple years and specific quarters for small and midsize banks and for select large banks.

Daily072022.pdf

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