Following the catastrophic flooding in Texas and Oklahoma, the OCC today declared an emergency in the affected areas and said that national banks and federal thrifts would be permitted, at their own discretion, to close branches and offices in the affected areas.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler yesterday circulated a summary of his proposal to clarify the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s restrictions on autodialed calls and texts. One item to be addressed is ABA’s petition to the agency for an exemption from TCPA’s requirement for “prior express consent” for autodialed calls to alert bank customers to fraudulent transactions, data breaches and actions required to complete funds transfers.
More than 544,000 borrowers in the first quarter refinanced their Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgage loans, with about 31,600 of those happening through the Home Affordable Refinance Program, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said yesterday.
CoBank, the Farm Credit System’s sole authorized lender to utility and agricultural cooperatives, has ranged further afield in lending to investor-owned utilities and energy companies, and taking on more credit risk in doing so.
FDIC-insured banks and savings institutions earned $39.8 billion in the first quarter, up 6.9 percent from the industry’s earnings a year before, the FDIC said today. Earnings improved as net operating revenue increased, driven by 4.6 percent growth in noninterest income — in particular trading revenue and noninterest income from single-family mortgages — and a 1.5 percent increase in net interest income.
Four in 10 U.S. households surveyed last fall said they were somewhat or much better off financially than they had been five years prior, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2014 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking released today. Just over a quarter said they were worse off than in 2009.
ABA Chairman John Ikard announced that ABA has selected Rob Nichols to serve as the association’s new president and CEO.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week updated its rulemaking agenda for the remainder of 2015 and into 2016.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is exploring ways of more effectively sharing information in the fight against money laundering/terrorist financing, FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said at the Royal United Services Institute’s workshop on “Tackling Money Laundering: Towards a New Model for Information Sharing” in London.
Hundreds of lawmakers wrote to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last week urging Director Richard Cordray to provide an enforcement grace period after the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosures take effect on Aug. 1 running through the end of 2015.