WASHINGTON-Credit unions may soon getter a better handle on potential additional compliance demands as the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun accepting consumer complaints related to home mortgages.
The CFPB said it had begun on Dec. 1 accepting complaints and inquiries related to mortgages. In late July it had begun processing complaints related to credit cards, and has issued a report on its first three months of collecting such card data. It expects to be handling all types of complaints related to financial products and services by the end of 2012.
Some analysts last week predicted that the CFPB's move into the mortgage market, including new mortgage-related rules, is likely to create significant new compliance issues for institutions, and especially banks.
Officials estimated the number of mortgage-related complaints to be on par with those received last year by federal regulators, which equaled roughly 48,000.
Jo Ann Barefoot, a co-chair at Treliant Risk Advisors, said the bureau is likely to receive more complaints related to mortgages than any other product by far.
"Mortgages are a complicated product, so there's a lot more basis for complaints than you might have in, say, the credit card area," Barefoot told American Banker, an affiliate of Credit Union Journal. "And mortgages are so much in the political, media, cultural spotlight that I would think they'll generate a lot of complaints."
She also expects the CFPB to receive more complaints alleging discrimination, which it may use to target unfair or deceptive practices. This could catch some banks off-guard, as many don't have good complaint systems of their owns and do little complaint analysis, she said.
"The fact that the complaint can arise over things that are not the subject of a technical rule causes difficulty for banks because they are mostly set up to check for the technical rules," Barefoot said. "Starting a UDAP questioning process with a complaint turns the traditional compliance setup on its head."
