On March 20, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the FTC and CFPB provided their joint annual report to Congress regarding the agencies efforts to administer the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  This report is just one more indicator of the increasing focus of debt collection practices of financial institutions.

In this joint report the CFPB explained that it plans to provide a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking relating to debt collection practices sometime in the spring of 2019.

The bottom line is that debt collection practices continue to be an increasing hot topic with regulators.  Therefore, we will be including the annual report to Congress in our next Quarterly Compliance Update, which will be available for purchase later in April.

On March 12, 2019, the CFPB published their 2019 Winter Edition of Supervisory Highlights, which marks the eighteenth issue of this publication, and the first under Director Kathy Kraninger.

As has been the case with prior editions, this edition of the publication included five main sections including an introduction, supervisory observations, remedial actions, supervision program developments, and conclusion - and includes topics like automobile and mortgage servicing, deposits, and remittances.

On the first day of spring, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) today issued the Winter 2018 issue of Supervisory Insights, which includes a feature article examining the future of, and alternatives to, the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR).

LIBOR is a popular reference rate for commercial loans, residential mortgages, derivatives and swaps, and other credit instruments.  While LIBOR often is viewed as a reference rate used by larger financial institutions, it is also important to smaller community banks and savings institutions.  Initiatives are underway that could transition financial markets away from the use of LIBOR as a reference rate after 2021. Therefore, financial institutions must plan for this potential change and the FDIC provides guidance in this article.

On March 25, 2019, the OCC released Bulletin 2019-15 as a reminder to supervised banks that certain nonpublic OCC information generally cannot be disclosed.  In the bulletin, the OCC explains that reports of examination and other nonpublic OCC information are the property of the OCC. Except in very limited circumstances, a bank may not disclose this information without the prior written permission of the OCC. This prohibition applies to any portion of a report of examination, supervisory correspondence, and any representations concerning the report or supervisory correspondence, or their findings, including the assigned CAMELS rating. Any unauthorized disclosure or use of nonpublic information may be subject to criminal penalties.