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On March 8, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its tenth edition of Supervisory Highlights, which outlines the latest supervisory actions taken against banks and nonbanks, between September 2015 and December 2015.

According to the report, the CFPB’s supervisory actions resulted in $14.3 million in relief to more than 228,000 consumers.  The non-public actions are a result of the CFPB’s supervisory actions and are in addition to public enforcement actions that is has taken.  The CFPB has supervisory authority over banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets as well as nonbanks, including mortgage companies, private student loan lenders, and payday lenders, as well as nonbanks the CFPB designates as “larger participants.”  The CFPB has designated as “larger participants” companies from the debt collection, consumer reporting, international money transfers, student loan servicing, and auto finance industries.

According to the Supervisory Highlights, the CFPB uncovered the following violations in the course of its supervisory actions:

  • Student loan servicers engaged in unfair practices by automatically defaulting private student loans on the occurrence of a certain event, such as a co-borrower filing for bankruptcy;
  • Student loan debt collectors engaged in false, deceptive, or misleading representations when attempting to collect student loans, such as threatening improper garnishment actions;
  • Banks and nonbanks violated CFPB’s new remittance rule, by failing to provide complete or accurate information or failing to cancel transactions within the required time;
  • Banks and credit unions failed to update checking account information they supplied to checking account reporting companies; and
  • Debt collectors failed to honor consumers’ written requests to cease debt collection communications.

You can view the CFPB’s Tenth Edition of Supervisory Highlights here: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201603_cfpb_supervisory-highlights.pdf.

ABOUT STINSON LEONARD STREET

Stinson Leonard Street LLP provides sophisticated transactional and litigation legal services to clients ranging from individuals and privately held enterprises to national and international public companies. As one of the 100 largest firms in the U.S., Stinson Leonard Street has offices in 14 cities, including Minneapolis, Mankato and St. Cloud, Minn.; Kansas City, St. Louis and Jefferson City, Mo.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Denver, Colo.; Washington, D.C.; Decatur, Ill.; Wichita and Overland Park, Kan.; Omaha, Neb.; and Bismarck, N.D.

Zane Gilmer is a member of the firm’s litigation practice group.  His practice focuses on business litigation and compliance and he is a member of the firm’s CFPB taskforce.  Zane works out of the firm’s Denver office and he can be reached at zane.gilmer@stinson.com or 303.376.8416.

The views expressed herein are the views of the blogger and not those of Stinson Leonard Street or any client.