Regulatory guidance

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received over a quarter-million complaints in 2018, according to analysis by an advocacy group that urged the agency to maintain public access to its database.

Two nonprofits threatened by the effort say the Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to avoid scrutiny last month when it announced the new policy outside the formal rulemaking process.

The Structured Finance Industry Group wants Treasury and the IRS to issue a notice that a change from Libor to an alternative index would not be treated as a taxable exchange.

The move allows the New York multifamily lender to make more loans without having to raise capital.

The federal agencies said in a recent statement that “guidance does not have the force and effect of law,” but two trade groups say that standard should be more binding.

Protecting consumers from intrusive cold calls and fax-spamming is having adverse effects on the mortgage industry as the Federal Communications Commission fails to reasonably interpret language under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The consumer bureau’s interim chief told an industry conference that “regulation by enforcement is done.”

Regulators will continue to issue guidance to articulate general views on appropriate practices, but they will not issue enforcement actions based on violations.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's practice of "regulation by enforcement" and use of nonbinding guidance materials makes its regulatory efforts "unfair and ineffective" to lenders and servicers, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Most mortgage lenders and banks do not maintain a comprehensive vendor management strategy, exposing institutions to increased compliance risk, according to a recent survey.

Banking and mortgage groups are asking the Federal Communications Commission to issue new Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules that would make consumer lawsuits over robocalls harder to win.

The legislation would prohibit the CFPB from penalizing institutions that rely in good faith on guidance from the bureau.

A majority of midsize and large banks complain that red tape is mounting and that they are passing on higher regulatory costs to customers and have less flexibility in designing products, according to a new survey by the RMA.

The new request for information is the 10^th in the series that is part of acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s “call for evidence” to assess the CFPB’s overall effectiveness.

A Fed committee studying Libor’s replacement has dwelled heavily on the potential impact to the derivatives market. Loans may become a bigger part of the conversation later this year, but the panel plans to leave a lot of the specifics up to lenders.

The Trump Administration’s anti-regulatory agenda has yet to permeate the Securities and Exchange Commission, which remains opposed to relief for collateralized loan obligations.

The Government Accountability Office has agreed to a request by a GOP lawmaker to examine whether Congress can reject regulators' guidance.

Democrats in the House and Senate introduced a bill Tuesday that would get rid of an obscure legislative process that has handcuffed rulemakings from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other regulators.

The GOP is working on a plan that could extend the Congressional Review Act's reach so that it may overturn certain policies all the way back to 1996.

No matter what form government-sponsored enterprise reform takes, Federal Housing Finance Agency officials are stressing that it should account for the fact that the GSEs' capital buffer will soon hit zero.