Blog — Compliance Cohort

On 5/22/2020, the CFPB - jointly with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey - filed a lawsuit against Commonwealth Equity Group, LLC, (which does business as Key Credit Repair) and Nikitas Tsoukales, Key Credit Repair’s president and owner. The complaint issued by the CFPB and Attorney General alleges that in their telemarketing of credit-repair services, the defendants violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s prohibition against deceptive acts or practices and the Telemarketing Sales Rule’s prohibitions on deceptive and abusive telemarketing acts or practices.

Apr 1
Apr 1 CFPB Settles with Short-Term Lender for UDAAP Violations

On April 1, 2020, the CFPB announced a settlement with Cottonwood Financial, Ltd., which does business under the name Cash Store, operating in several states and based in Texas. The CFPB found that in the course of marketing, servicing, and collecting on high-interest payday, auto-title, and unsecured consumer-installment loans Cash Store violated several consumer protection laws including the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and Truth in Lending Act (TILA). The consent order includes $1.3 million in monetary restitutions and fines.

Mar 17
Mar 17 CFPB Files Suit Against Fifth Third Bank

On 3/9/2020, the CFPB announced that they filed a lawsuit against Fifth Third Bank for practices that appear to be similar to those Wells Fargo had allowed to occur within their organization. For example, the Bureau alleges that for several years Fifth Third

Mar 12

Mar 12 Abusive Acts or Practices

In this Compliance Clip (video), Adam discusses the definition of “abusive” in UDAAP. This short training is actually based on a section of our UDAAP Foundations program which discusses everything related to UDAAP - including a discussion on over 50 known UDAAP violations.

Jan 28
Jan 28 CFPB Issues Statement on Abusive Acts or Practices

UDAAP, Regulatory Update

On January 24, 2020, the CFPB issued a sixteen page policy statement providing a common-sense framework on how it intends to apply the "abusiveness" standard in supervision and enforcement matters. While this guidance helps financial institutions to understand how the CFPB intends to enforce “abusive” acts or practices, it still leaves a void as to…

Aug 21

Aug 21 An Example of a Deceptive Practice

In this unique Compliance Clip (video), Adam provides a personal experience that relates to a potential deceptive practice. Be sure to close your door for this one as the clip gets a bit bizarre in spots…

For those interested in more information on UDAAP, take a look at our UDAAP Foundations course in our store at www.compliancecohort.com/udaap-foundations.

Jul 2
Jul 2 UDAAP Violation Examples

One of the areas of greatest concern for financial institutions continues to relate to Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAAP). While UDAAP violations have been on the forefront of the minds of most compliance officers since the Dodd-Frank Act added “abusive” into the mix, this area still causes challenges for financial institutions as regulators continue to cite financial institutions for UDAAP violations for practices that had not previously been identified as unfair, deceptive, or abusive. This article explores a number of UDAAP violation examples.

Jul 1
Jul 1 CFPB Holds Symposium on Abusive Acts or Practices

On June 25, 2019, the CFPB held a symposium on abusive acts or practices. This symposium was the first in a series aimed at stimulating a proactive and transparent dialogue to assist the Bureau in its policy development process, including possible future rulemakings. The CFPB has explained that the format of each symposium will include a discussion panel of experts with a variety of viewpoints on the topic. The recent abusive acts or practices symposium included two panels of UDAAP experts and also included

May 17

May 17 Example of Unfair UDAAP Violation