Enforcement

Industry Bancshares has been bogged down for years with unrealized losses. The Federal Reserve issued a cease-and-desist order against the firm, following similar actions by other agencies.

TD Bank's guilty plea to extensive money-laundering charges last week did not include any criminal charges against individual bank executives. That absence has critics fuming, but experts say bringing charges against individuals isn't so easy.

Regulators' asset cap on TD Bank for money-laundering violations has cemented the enforcement tool as a supreme cudgel to rein in problem banks, while other tools devised in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis gather dust.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Director Rohit Chopra was stymied for months by a Supreme Court case that put many enforcement actions on hold, but the bureau is making up for lost time.

The Canadian bank is indefinitely prohibited from growing assets at its two U.S. subsidiaries as the result of a sweeping settlement over money-laundering violations. While only the second imposition of such a penalty ever, experts say it will not be the last.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said the action would "close the book" on the agency's investigation into the Sallie Mae spinout.

The Federal Reserve fined a Montana bank for violating the National Flood Insurance Act and issued a cease-and-desist order against a Dallas bank over money-laundering concerns.

Fines levied by the Wall Street regulator have dwindled in recent years.

Robert M. Kowalski was convicted for his role in embezzling tens of millions of dollars from Washington Federal Bank for Savings, which led to the bank's failure in 2017.

Jack Poulsen, the former president of Ericson State Bank in Nebraska, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for bank fraud involving loans to a relative that led to the rural bank's collapse.

Last year, the CFPB referred 18 matters to the Department of Justice and initiated 28 fair lending examinations or targeted reviews, the highest number of such actions by the agency ever.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors issued a cease and desist order against Indiana-based United Fidelity Bank over concerns that the bank was deficient in its board oversight policies.

Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Friday that the agency will be moving forward with rules and enforcement actions after the defeat of a Supreme Court challenge to the agency's constitutionality.

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency both cited the nation's largest bank for having "inadequate" policies around firm and client trading activities.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered U.S. Bank to pay about $21 million for its prepaid debit card program for government benefits, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a $15 million fine over similar violations.

The online payday lender violated a 2019 consent order by debiting consumers' bank accounts without the consumers' consent, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

The eight-year-old penalty stemmed from traders at the bank colluding with counterparts at other large banks to manipulate dollar and euro prices.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged in a lawsuit that the nonbank lender violated a 2019 consent order and submitted incorrect information in 2020.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to hire 75 employees in its enforcement division as it boosts investigations against "large market actors," according to an internal email obtained by American Banker.

The Federal Reserve took action against a small bank in southern Illinois whose exposures to interest rate changes left it with negative equity last year. The enforcement action comes as regulators review their oversight practices following Silicon Valley Bank's failure.