Compliance Watch

The good news is that bankruptcies have diminished during the pandemic by virtue of “enhanced” unemployment benefits and moratoria on foreclosures and evictions. The not-so-good news is that the benefits and moratoria have now expired, so landlords and mortgage lenders can be expected to resort to legal remedies.

Question: Are money orders considered cashier’s checks under UCC? Answer: Generally, no. Usually, money orders are sold by the credit union but drawn on an account held by whoever the vendor is that issues the checks.

Our staff will be celebrating the holiday, so there will be no InfoSight newsletter next week.

A new topic, OSHA COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing: Emergency Temporary Standard, was created in the Employment Channel in response to OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) that was published in the Federal Register on Nov. 5, 2021.

The CFPB, Board of Governors, OCC, FDIC, NCUA and state financial regulators on Nov. 10, 2021, issued an updated "Joint Statement on Supervisory and Enforcement Practices Regarding the Mortgage Servicing Rules in Response to the Continuing COVID-19 Pandemic and CARES Act."

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect federal credit unions and their members.

 The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that millions of American families will soon receive their advance Child Tax Credit payment for the month of November.

The CFPB recently announced it has filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal district court against FirstCash, Inc. and Cash America West, Inc.

The CFPB would like to remind institutions that the threshold for reporting HMDA data about open-end lines of credit will adjust to 200 open-end lines of credit, effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Question: Must a loan application fee be included in the APR calculation as a finance charge? Answer: Yes, if you only charge it to members that successfully apply for credit. You may exclude it if you charge it to any applicant regardless of credit approval.