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ANNOUNCING THE RETURN OF THE AUTO FINANCE PEER GROUP, MODERATED BY KELLI EDMONDS OF SANTANDER CONSUMER USA AT THE DEBT CONNECTION SYMPOSIUM & EXPO 2019
Auto Finance Peer Group members will want to mark their calendars for September 10th, 1:30 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. for this special peer networking discussion. The Auto Finance Peer Group break out session provides auto creditors the opportunity to meet with industry peers to discuss auto recovery issues, challenges and best practices. During the break out session, there will be discussions related to the current economic situation, its impact on auto recoveries, and the best practices of industry leaders to manage recovery operations through these challenging times. The session will be an interactive open forum providing attendees the opportunity to share their experiences, thoughts and plans for the future. Auto Finance Peer Group is a member’s only group.
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Maine becomes the latest state with a ‘Student Loan Bill of Rights’
Maine is the latest state to pass a law amid frustration with federal inaction over the supervision of student loan companies. On Thursday, Maine Governor Janet Mills signed the “Act To Establish a Student Loan Bill of Rights To License and Regulate Student Loan Servicers,” which will go into effect in September. “Paying back student loan debt is difficult enough without a profit-hungry lender trying to make it harder and more expensive,” Governor Mills said in a statement. “By signing this bill into law, Maine is taking critical action to create oversight, implement accountability, and protect the interests of our borrowers.”
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CNN Business exclusive: Bank of America CEO warns about excessive corporate debt
New York (CNN Business)US households have cleaned up their balance sheets from the Great Recession. Corporate America, on the other hand, is saddled with too much debt, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CNN Business. "Consumers are in very good shape to borrow. Corporate debt is high," Moynihan said during an exclusive interview from the sidelines of the Fortune Brainstorm Finance conference in Montauk, New York. "That's an issue. It's got to be dealt with." Although the Bank of America (BAC) CEO struck a bullish tone on the US economy — he doesn't foresee an imminent recession — Moynihan singled out corporate debt as a concern. Some US companies, Moynihan noted, have borrowed so heavily that they're leveraged at up to 12 times earnings.
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Beshear: For-Profit American National College Violated Consumer Protection Act
FRANKFORT, KY. – Attorney General Andy Beshear today announced that the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld a Fayette Circuit Court’s finding that American National University, formerly known as National College of Kentucky, willfully violated the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act.Beshear said National broke state law when it published deceptive advertisements on its website regarding the employment success of its graduates. The allegations involved all of the college’s campuses in Kentucky, which were located in Danville, Florence, Lexington, Louisville, Pikeville and Richmond.
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As More Off-Lease Vehicles Go to Market, Used Car Demand for Prime and Above Consumers Rises
While used vehicle financing has traditionally been associated with non-prime borrowers, a new TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) study has found that consumers across the credit spectrum are increasingly evaluating used vehicles as a more practical option. This trend is especially noteworthy among consumers with prime and higher credit scores, and is believed to be driven in part by the influx of off-lease vehicles to the marketplace.
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Bank of America CEO: ‘We Want a Cashless Society’
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan kicked off Fortune’s inaugural Brainstorm Finance conference in Montauk, N.Y., on Wednesday by discussing the tech-driven strides made by one of the country’s largest financial institutions. Speaking with Fortune editor-at-large Shawn Tully, Moynihan touched on BoA’s embrace of artificial intelligence-driven technology via applications like Erica, a voice-activated virtual assistant used by 7 million customers. By his estimation, the financial institution has “probably spent $30 million on code” over the past eight years to develop and improve its technological infrastructure.
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Hospitality Lending: Whose Market?
As the economy continues its upward trajectory, hotels are enjoying the benefits of strong demand from both personal and business travel. Despite these solid operating fundamentals, many lenders are apprehensive about the record length of the current economic expansion and the impact that a future downturn may have on room rates and occupancy levels. In response to these growing fears, many capital sources have either tightened their lending criteria or decided to cease hospitality lending all together. As traditional sources of financing retreat, hospitality owners have had to look far and wide for lenders that remain receptive to this asset class. This has created opportunities for lesser-known sources of capital, like Chicago-based Alliant Credit Union, to finance high quality properties.
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Senate Banking panel sets hearing on Facebook’s Libra
WASHINGTON — The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a hearing for next month to examine Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, just one day after the social network unveiled Project Libra in its latest foray into the financial system. The hearing, “Examining Facebook’s Proposed Digital Currency and Data Privacy Considerations,” is to take place July 16 at 10:00 a.m. No witnesses have been announced. Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the ranking member of the committee, sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in May requesting more information on the company’s reported efforts to develop a cryptocurrency and what privacy and consumer protections were being considered as part of the project.
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WebRecon Stats for May 2019: FCRA Down, Everything Else Up (and the unexpected resurgence of a familiar name)
Quick analysis: For the second time in three months, FDCPA and TCPA lawsuit numbers rose (2.8%, 13.4%, respectively) while FCRA dipped (-6.9%) from the previous month. That goes counter to the longer term trends we have been seeing that make a case for the opposite (FCRA up, FDCPA & TCPA down). At least it did until this month, when the weight of FCRA’s decline dragged the YTD number back into negative territory, bringing all three statutes down a bit YTD (FDCPA -4.6%, FCRA -1.0%, TCPA -11.1%).
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ANNOUNCING LEGAL STRATEGIES AND OUTSOURCING PANEL AT DCS2019
Our legal strategies and outsourcing panel is making its way back to DCS2019, to be held September 10 - 12, 2019 at the Red Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. Join Manny Newburger, Dave Snyder, and Brian Winn for a panel on optimizing the legal collection strategy for your company. Hear how you and your clientele can have a positive relationship and productively collect on legal accounts. This 45 minute glimpse into the inner workings of a successful legal operation will be a great learning experience for all!
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Fort Worth firm to pay back $39.7 million on payday loans that charged 375% interest
A Fort Worth financial firm will cancel its outstanding loans and pay nearly $40 million to consumers after engaging in an alleged payday lending operation that used Native American tribes as shields from state laws. Think Finance Inc. serviced loans that charged interest rates over 375% and locked borrowers into plans in which paying off the loan was nearly impossible, according to a 2016 complaint filed in Vermont.
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Fintech algorithms discriminate 40% less than traditional lenders
Algorithmic fintech lending is less discriminatory against minorities than traditional loan officers, according to a recent study of US mortgages. The findings signal hope that technology could provide financing that’s more fair, but the research also underscores how widespread discrimination remains. The US housing market has long been prejudiced against minorities. When Latino and Africa-American borrowers are looking to buy a home, they usually end up paying 7.9 basis points (0.079 percentage points) more than whites to take out the mortgage, and 3.6 basis points more when they refinance the debt, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper published this month. That comes to $765 million in additional interest costs each year. The researchers also estimated that discrimination may have resulted in as many as 1.3 million mortgage applications being rejected between 2009 and 2015. Algorithms tend to have a better record. Online financial technology companies discriminate, too, but 40% less than loan officers who make decisions face-to-face, the NBER researchers found. They also found no discrimination from the robots when it comes to loan approvals.
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3 WAYS FINTECH STARTUPS ARE CHANGING THE ONLINE LENDING SPACE WITH LIZZIE DUNN
In major economies around the world, such as in the U.S. and U.K., small businesses employ about half of the working population. Their impact—financially as well as culturally—is enormous. But due to their lack of collateral and limited credit histories, small businesses don’t get the same opportunities to acquire funding as big corporations, or even individuals looking for personal loans. There has long been a disconnect between new, innovative small businesses and the financing they need to help them grow. Dubbed the Macmillan gap, this inability to bring together finance and industry was again exposed in the wake of the financial crisis.
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HSBC launches digital mortgage platform with help from Roostify
One of the world’s largest banks is about to join the digital mortgage revolution, as HSBC Bank USA, the U.S. arm of HSBC Group, announced that it is partnering with Roostify to launch a digital mortgage platform. Roostify, a multiple-time HousingWire Tech100 winner and leader in the digital lending space, uses technology that streamlines the mortgage process but also provides consumers with a human-centric approach.
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THE AMBITIOUS PLAN BEHIND FACEBOOK’S CRYPTOCURRENCY, LIBRA
NEAR THE END of 2017, on a Dominican Republic beach with his family, Facebook executive David Marcus wrestled with a question he’d been pondering since his previous job as president of PayPal. How would you build the internet of money? A friction-free global digital currency would be a boon for the many people with mobile phones but no access to banking. And who better to develop something like this, he wondered, than Facebook, with its global reach and massive user base? Marcus, then head of Facebook Messenger, thought he had an answer. He texted his boss and told him it was time to talk about Facebook creating a cryptocurrency, saying that he had a clear view of how to do it, in a way that would earn trust even from those skeptical of Facebook. Marcus spent the next few days writing a memo that laid out his ideas. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly endorsed the plan, saying the approach synced with his ideas.
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CFPB chief’s equal-opportunity calendar
In her first four and a half months on the job, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger was no stranger to Capitol Hill, holding in-person meetings with lawmakers more than twice as often as her predecessor did during a similar time frame. Kraninger, who has been at the helm of the agency since December, met in person with 16 members of the House or Senate from Dec. 11 through the end of April, most of them in the lawmaker's office. The meetings, posted as part of her public schedule that is available on the CFPB website, were held with 10 Republicans and six Democrats. Yet her schedule, part of a planned "listening tour" to hear from various stakeholders, suggests a concerted effort to meet with members from both parties, as well as a diverse array of consumer advocates, bankers and trade group representatives.
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NY Attorney General Urges CFPB to Dismiss Proposed HMDA Rule
New York State Attorney General Letitia James urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) not to adopt its recently-proposed rule that would undermine the ability to enforce fair lending laws and prevent discrimination in the mortgage lending market.
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Debt Collector Goes Bankrupt After Health Care Data Hack
(Bloomberg) -- Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau Inc., whose business was blamed for a large-scale data breach that affected millions of Quest Diagnostics Inc. customers, filed for Chapter 11 protection, citing fallout from the security issue. The company, which collects patient receivables for medical labs under the name American Medical Collection Agency, listed assets and liabilities of as much as $10 million in its bankruptcy petition filed in the Southern District of New York. It’s aiming to liquidate, the company said.
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Bank of America offers down payment, closing cost help for prospective home buyers.
Bank of America will provide down payment and closing cost grants for prospective home buyers in Charlotte, the bank announced. Clients could receive up to $17,500, including up to $10,000 toward a down payment and $7,500 for closing costs. Nearly 70% of prospective buyers identified saving enough for a down payment and closing costs as the biggest barriers to home ownership, according to a Bank of America consumer insight report.
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Cortez Masto, Schumer, Klobuchar and Hassan Introduce Legislation to Deter Illegal Robocalls
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) today introduced the Deter Obnoxious, Nefarious, and Outrageous Telephone (DO NOT) Call Act of 2019 with Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). This legislation will improve enforcement and enhance penalties for violations made under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Though the current statute outlaws initiating a robocall without the consent of an individual, these calls continue to surge. In 2017 alone, over 30.5 billion robocalls were initiated. These calls are generally illegal and are frequently used to defraud and scam elderly Americans. In 2015, Americans lost $7.4 billion to telephone scams.
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DCM Services names Dereck Eastman as Chief Technology Officer
Minneapolis, MN — June 17, 2019 — DCM Services, LLC (DCMS) the industry leader in estate and specialty account recovery solutions, announced today the promotion of Dereck Eastman to Chief Technology Officer. Eastman, who most recently served as Vice President of Information Technology, will continue to oversee all application and development support as well as the IT infrastructure area. Eastman joined the organization in 2006 and has nearly 2 decades of experience architecting and developing software. He has been the premier software developer at DCMS and has led the development of several technologies including Probate Finder®, Probate Finder OnDemand®, DCMS ServiceLink® and many other industry leading tools.
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Idaho Attorney General announces debt relief for former ITT students
Boise, Idaho- Idaho's Attorney General Lawrence Wasden announced that his office has secured an agreement to obtain $1.86 million in debt relief for 215 former ITT Tech (“ITT”) students in Idaho. The agreement is part of a settlement involving 43 states and the District of Columbia. The settlement will result in debt relief of more than $168 million for more than 18,000 former ITT students around the nation. The settlement is with Student CU Connect CUSO, LLC (“CUSO”), which offered loans to finance students’ ITT tuition. ITT Tech was a for-profit college that filed bankruptcy in 2016
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Top U.S. B-School Students Pile on Debt to Earn MBAs
For aspiring executives, the truism that’s held constant for a generation probably has been that there’s no faster way to advance up the corporate ladder than to go back to school and get an MBA. For many, it’s also been the quickest way to pile up a mountain of debt. New data from a Bloomberg Businessweek survey of more than 10,000 MBA graduates from the class of 2018 at 126 schools around the world suggest that nearly half the students at some of the best business schools are borrowing at least $100,000 to finance their master’s degree in business administration.
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Quicken Loans to pay $32.5 million to resolve mortgage suit
After years of legal haggling, Quicken Loans has agreed to pay $32.5 million to resolve a case brought by the federal government accusing the big mortgage lender of fraud relating to FHA-mortgages made several years ago. In the agreement, Quicken, which made no admission of wrongdoing, will continue to participate in the Federal Housing Administration loan program, a key part of its business.
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AG Rutledge settles with group over student debt defaults
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge reached a settlement with Student CU Connect LLC (CUSO) for former ITT Tech students resolving a multi-state investigation which alleged that ITT and CUSO used high pressure tactics to accept CUSO loans. These student loans carried higher interest rates than federal loans, ultimately resulting in a high number of loan defaults. The settlement includes $1,073,688.40 in debt relief for 128 Arkansans. “ITT and CUSO deceived Arkansans by using illegal and high pressure tactics and they must be held responsible for their actions,” Rutledge said. “This settlement provides relief to Arkansans who attended ITT Tech and incurred debts for a questionable education that they could neither repay nor discharge.”
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PayThink Bot fraudsters give human ones a run for their money
With artificial intelligence added into the mix, bots are now able to mimic humans with greater accuracy, and make it look like someone is actually interacting with a form on a web page, creating a greater fraud risk. The cybercrime economy is estimated to reap $1.5 trillion in profits a year, according to a Bromium/Ponemon study. Those profits are in part achieved by bots and botnets, the automated workers of the internet.
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This big bank is eliminating all fees on checking and savings accounts
Discover is doing away with fees of any kind on its checking, savings, money market and certificate of deposit accounts. The move would be a first for a large bank and comes as smaller online fintechs offer no-fee options and high-yield savings to woo younger and more price-conscious Americans. Going forward, Discover won’t charge fees for monthly maintenance, checkbook orders, replacement debit cards, insufficient funds, excessive withdrawals, falling below minimum balances and stop-payment requests.
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Senators urge CFPB not to reduce reporting requirements for HMDA
A coalition of U.S. senators recently demanded that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rescind its proposal to reduce reporting requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). HMDA requires financial institutions to report and publicly disclose mortgage data, which is used by Federal regulators, local governments, and advocates to ensure that all markets have access to mortgage credit and monitor compliance with fair lending laws. However, a proposal to further reduce HMDA data collection would undermine fair lending enforcement and monitoring at the national, local, and institutional level, the senators stated.
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Agencies Release List of Distressed or Underserved Nonmetropolitan Middle-Income Geographies
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today announced the availability of the 2019 list of distressed or underserved nonmetropolitan middle-income geographies, where revitalization or stabilization activities are eligible to receive Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) consideration under the community development definition.
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Google and PayPal explored OCC’s fintech charter, then walked away
Google, PayPal and dozens of other technology and fintech companies have visited with officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency during the past year to explore whether to obtain the agency's new special-purpose national bank charter, according to sources familiar with the matter. But both Google and PayPal, as well as several others, have since backed off over fears that they could harm existing relationships with state regulators and concerns about whether the OCC will prevail in a legal challenge to its authority to create the fintech charter. Many technology and fintech companies “operate under a national network of state licenses, so they don’t want to jeopardize that relationship as they shift to a national bank charter, especially if it’s unclear where the litigation will end up,” said Thomas Curry, a partner at Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP and the former comptroller who initially called for the creation of the limited-purpose charter.
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PayThink Bot fraudsters give human ones a run for their money
With artificial intelligence added into the mix, bots are now able to mimic humans with greater accuracy, and make it look like someone is actually interacting with a form on a web page, creating a greater fraud risk. The cybercrime economy is estimated to reap $1.5 trillion in profits a year, according to a Bromium/Ponemon study. Those profits are in part achieved by bots and botnets, the automated workers of the internet. Bots are expected to account for more than 50% of all internet traffic by the end of the year. With 1.9 billion records exposed during the first three months of 2019, not counting the 275 million records recently exposed on the internet, there is a tidal wave of personal information for cybercriminals to launch nonstop credential stuffing and brute force attacks.
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Predatory lending rates: Commissioner wants to halt pay-day loan permits
SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - A Caddo Commissioner wants the City of Shreveport to temporarily suspend all permits to new pay-day loan shops and pawn shops. Commissioner Steven Jackson filed the proposal, according to the work session agenda. The commission plans to discuss the matter at Monday’s work session meeting at 3:30 P.M. Resolution No. 50 says payday loan shops offer predatory lending rates that are dangerous to lower income people. It suggests that high-interest loans contribute to poverty. It also takes aim at pawn shops. The resolution seeks to encourage other city leaders against issuing permits until there’s a plan to address poverty.
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This big bank is eliminating all fees on checking and savings accounts
“What we keep hearing resoundingly – and not just from Millennials and Gen Z – is that there's been a fundamental change in how people think about fees," said Arijit Roy, vice president of deposits at Discover. "They create a very negative emotion, so we thought we take the next step to eliminate all fees." The average fee banks charge to maintain a checking account is $13.58 per month, or $162.96 a year, according to a February MoneyRates.com survey. The percentage of checking accounts without monthly fees dipped to 30.40 percent, down from 31.78 percent six months ago, the survey also found.
Online banks are more likely to offer free checking. Almost two-thirds of online checking accounts have no monthly fees compared with just a quarter of traditional, branch-based accounts. When online checking accounts charge monthly maintenance fees, they are often lower than those charged by branch-based accounts, MoneyRates found.
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Settles with Student CU Connect CUSO over ITT Private Loan Program
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) today announced a settlement with Student CU Connect CUSO, LLC (CUSO), a company set up to hold and manage private loans for students at ITT Technical Institute. The Bureau filed a complaint and a proposed stipulated judgment in federal district court for the Southern District of Indiana alleging that CUSO provided substantial assistance to ITT Educational Services, Inc. (ITT) in engaging in unfair acts and practices. ITT operated ITT Technical Institute until it filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in 2016. The Bureau’s complaint alleges that CUSO was actively involved in the creation and the implementation of the CUSO loan program. The complaint alleges that ITT induced its students to take out the loans by a variety of means, and that CUSO knew or was reckless in not knowing that many student borrowers did not understand the terms and conditions of the CUSO loans and could not afford them.
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AG Yost Announces $6.8 Million in Debt Relief for ITT Tech Students
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Attorney General Dave Yost today announced a multi-state settlement that will provide $6.8 million in debt relief to about 870 former ITT Tech students in Ohio. Nationally, the 43-state settlement will result in debt relief of $168 million for more than 18,000 former students.
The settlement is with Student CU Connect CUSO, LLC (CUSO), which offered loans to finance student tuition at ITT Tech, a failed for-profit college. ITT filed for bankruptcy in 2016 amid investigations by state attorneys general and following action by the U.S. Department of Education to restrict ITT’s access to federal student aid. CUSO’s loan program originated about $189 million in student loans to ITT students between 2009 and 2011.
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Attorney General James Urges CFPB To Dismiss Proposed Rule That Leaves Consumers Vulnerable To Discrimination And Unfair Lending
NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) not to adopt its recently-proposed rule that would undermine the ability to enforce fair lending laws and prevent discrimination in the mortgage lending market. On May 13, 2019, the CFPB announced that it intended to raise the reporting threshold for mortgage lenders under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), a 1975 law that requires mortgage lenders to make certain mortgage data publicly available as a check to ensure compliance with fair lending laws. Some of this data includes information, which lenders already collect to comply with other regulations as well as their own underwriting standards, such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, census tract, credit score, total cost of the loan, any non-amortizing features, and property value, and whether the application was accepted or denied.
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Medical Debt Forgiveness Network
(847) 275-9001
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Federal Trade Commission
400 7th St., SW
Washington , DC
June 27 -
27 ,
2019 (202) 326-2222
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NACTT
JW Marriott Indianapolis
10 S. West Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Indianapolis , IN
July 16 -
19 ,
2019 800-445-8629 | 803-765-0860
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ACA International
Event Location TBA
July 17 -
16 ,
2019 800-269-1607
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Resource Management Services, Inc.
Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa
11011 W Charleston Blvd
Las Vegas, Nevada
September 10 -
12 ,
2019 (562) 906-1101
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National Creditors Bar Association
Marriott Marquis
Washington, Washington, DC
October 16 -
19 ,
2019 202-861-0706
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