CFPB Supervisory Highlights Report – Fall 2015

There is a lot of information on consumer financial issues in this report. Pages 21 – 28 have a report on Student Loans. Click here to download the report.

[Excerpt]

1.Introduction
The CFPB is committed to a consumer financial marketplace that is fair, transparent, and competitive, and that works for all consumers. The supervision of institutions that offer financial products and services – both banks and nonbanks – is one of the tools available to the Bureau to help meet this goal. In this ninth edition of Supervisory Highlights, the Bureau shares recent supervisory observations in the areas of consumer reporting, debt collection, mortgage origination, mortgage servicing, student loan servicing, and fair lending. One of the Bureau’s goals is to provide information that enables industry participants to ensure their operations remain in compliance with Federal consumer financial law. The findings reported here reflect information obtained from supervisory activities completed during the period under review as captured in examination reports or supervisory letters. In some instances, not all corrective actions, including through enforcement, have been completed at the time of releasing this report.

The Bureau’s supervisory activities have either led to or supported six recent public enforcement actions, resulting in $764.9 million being returned to consumers and $50.7 million in civil money penalties.(1) The Bureau also imposed other corrective actions at these institutions, including requiring improved compliance management systems (CMS), processes, and controls. In addition to these public enforcement actions, Supervision continues to resolve violations using non-public supervisory actions. When Supervision examinations determine that a supervised entity has violated a statute or regulation, the CFPB directs the entity to implement appropriate corrective measures, including remediation of consumer harm when appropriate.

(1) The CFPB’s Office of Enforcement also brought other actions unrelated to supervisory activities.

Recent supervisory resolutions have resulted in restitution (2) of approximately $107 million to more than 238,000 consumers. Other corrective actions have included, among other things, correction of information submitted to consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), creation and implementation of new policies and procedures, and cessation of particular deceptive practices.
The CFPB supervises insured depository institutions and insured credit unions with total assets of more than $10 billion, and their affiliates. In addition, the Bureau has authority under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) to supervise nonbanks, regardless of size, in certain specific markets: mortgage companies (originators, brokers, servicers, and providers of loan modification or foreclosure relief services); payday lenders; and private education lenders.

The CFPB may also supervise “larger participants” in other nonbank markets as the Bureau defines by rule. To date, the Bureau has issued five rules defining larger participants in the following markets: consumer reporting (effective September 2012), consumer debt collection (effective January 2013), student loan servicing (effective March 2014), international money transfers (effective December 2014) and, most recently, automobile financing (effective August 2015).
This report highlights supervision work generally completed between May 2015 and August 2015. Any questions or comments from supervised entities can be directed to CFPB_Supervision@cfpb.gov.

(2) The term “restitution” as used in this report refers specifically to monetary relief (or redress) to consumers, whereas remediation includes both monetary and non-monetary forms of relief.