Enforcement

The Federal Reserve voted unanimously Friday to impose an unprecedented enforcement action against Wells Fargo in response to its phony-accounts scandal as the bank said it would remove four members of its board.

Consumer advocates see acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney's restructuring as an attempt to reduce oversight and penalties for firms that discriminate against borrowers.

Mick Mulvaney’s unapologetic memo to staff about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mission headlined a spate of developments this past week as he continues to transform the agency. Here are the key developments.

Mick Mulvaney and Richard Cordray set themselves apart from the run-of-the-mill Beltway bashing of late when their war of words over the CFPB went positively bookish.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a request for information Wednesday seeking comment on the bureau's process for investigating companies that face possible enforcement actions.

Acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s decision to halt the collection of consumer data renders bank exams less effective and ignores existing cybersecurity protections, the Massachusetts senator argues.

If anyone has doubted that acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney intends to overhaul the agency, the last three days alone have put those doubts to rest.

The CFPB's recent freeze on collecting any personally identifiable information from companies it supervises is slowing investigations and could ultimately cripple the agency's enforcement function — and that may be the point.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is asking acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney to account for recent directives limiting agency staff members’ ability to access or acquire electronic data, saying the moves hamper critical agency operations.

The OCC said Thursday that the bank has yet to fully meet the conditions of a 2012 consent order requiring it to address problems in its Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance programs.

PHH Corp. agreed to a $45 million settlement to resolve allegations from 49 states and the District of Columbia that it engaged in "foreclosure process abuses" involving "inconsistent signatures" in its servicing business from 2009 to 2012. The settlement comes as the nonbank mortgage company continues its legal challenge to a separate regulatory action by the CFPB.

It will pay $11.5 million to resolve Finra claims that a brokerage unit displayed inaccurate research ratings for hundreds of securities for nearly five years.

Was the president’s recent tweet about enforcement measures against Wells Fargo an articulation of the administration’s approach for holding banks and executives accountable? Or is a tweet just a tweet?

The Federal Reserve Board announced that Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles will recuse himself from matters related to Wells Fargo “to avoid even the potential appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Royal Bank of Scotland Chief Executive Officer Ross McEwan said the likelihood is waning that the lender will settle a U.S. mortgage-bond probe before the end of the year as he'd hoped, though it's well-capitalized to handle a settlement.

More regulation, more regulators and more regulatory uncertainty both increase the cost of and inhibit financial services and payments innovation.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is eliminating a plan designed to ensure its examiners did not get too close to the big banks they supervise.

More regulation, more regulators and more regulatory uncertainty both increase the cost of and inhibit financial services and payments innovation.

In a letter to President Trump, 44 Democratic senators said the White House's appointment of Mick Mulvaney as interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "jeopardizes the agency’s independence and effectiveness."

Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney backed a congressional effort to overturn the agency's short-term lending rule, said he planned to install more political appointees and acknowledged a possible prank played on him.