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On May 11, 2016 FinCEN is publishing a 227-page final rule under the Bank Secrecy Act to clarify and strengthen customer due diligence requirements for banks and others. The rules contain explicit customer due diligence requirements and include a new requirement to identify and verify the identity of beneficial owners of legal entity customers, subject to certain exclusions and exemptions. Covered financial institutions are not presently required to know the identity of the individuals who

On March 29, 2016, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in the case of Abigail Strubel, Plaintiff v Capital One Bank. N.A., Defendant granted summary judgment against a putative class action alleging that the Garamond LC font used by Capital One Bank in its credit card applications was not “clear and conspicuous” as required by the Truth in Lending Act. The plaintiffs argued that the commentary provided by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) indicated that no

The Foreclosure Relief and Extension for Servicemembers Act of 2015 was enacted on March 31, 2016. It amends the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 by extending the one-year period after a service member’s military service during which certain protections apply. Those protections include: 1) a court may stay proceedings to enforce an obligation on real or personal property owned by the service member before such military service; and

On March 22, 2016 the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rendered a 4-4 split decision, that consisted of one-sentence, that effectively affirmed an Eighth Circuit ruling that dismissed a lawsuit in which two women argued Community Bank of Raymore improperly forced them to act as guarantors for loans extended to their husbands. The Eighth Circuit held that the Federal Reserve Board’s Regulation B spousal guarantor rule (12 C.F.R. 202.0(e)), which extended Equal Credit

“For the rest of this year and the next, our rulemaking agenda at the Consumer Bureau will remain quite active.” Director Richard Cordray recently stated. So what can we expect to see from the CFPB? The agency is working on new or revised rules for: Overdraft fees, including the opt-in process for overdraft coverage of electronic transactions; Collection and publication of data on small business lending (The Dodd-Frank Act required final rules by July 21,