On October 10, 2024, the financial services community was stunned by the $3.1 billion settlement between the federal government and TD Bank over Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) violations. TD Bank’s criminal guilty plea to conspiracy to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in drug cartel cash overshadowed a contemporaneous enforcement action
On October 22, 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized its long-anticipated rule implementing Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The 594-page final rule arrives nearly one year after the CFPB’s proposed rule, which received over 11,000 comments from industry participants concerning its implementation. The rule requires institutions that issue credit cards and hold
On October 10, 2024, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that TD Bank agreed to pay over $1.8 billion in penalties to resolve the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations. When combined with agreements with the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and
On July 1, 2024, banks and other financial institutions doing business in Florida will be required to comply with new rules designed to ensure fair access to banking and prevent politically or ideologically motivated denial of services. While Florida-licensed and chartered banks have been subject to some of these rules since the enaction of the
Over the past two years, we’ve been covering the state legislatures and executive officials taking aim at environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing and ramping up the pressure on companies that incorporate ESG factors into business decisions. Financial services companies have been watching carefully to see what’s next in the state pushback to ESG. And
Mortgage companies must maintain a heightened level of vigilance when it comes to preventing mortgage fraud. The incidence of fraud attempts targeting mortgage companies continues to rise, prompting decisive action against this threat. In a criminal complaint filed on April 23, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the
On April 22, 2024, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published its final rule regarding updated flood insurance requirements in certain areas of the country: Floodplain Management and Protection of Wetlands; Minimum Property Standards for Flood Hazard Exposure; Building to the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard. The new rule implements the
In an October 2023 advisory opinion, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put large banks and credit unions on notice that the use of chatbots and other technologies could increase the risk of violating federal law if those services are ineffective. As we have previously written about, the CFPB’s advisory opinion interprets Section
On October 12, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a joint statement emphasizing the risk associated with considering an applicant’s immigration status when making credit decisions. Specifically, the CFPB and DOJ emphasized that creditors should carefully consider how they use immigration status when accepting and evaluating applications and should
On September 19, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued Circular 2023-03, which provides guidance as to how lenders must explain denials of applications of credit when the underwriting is based on artificial intelligence (AI) or complex credit models. The upshot of the guidance is that a lender that denies an application for credit