Compliance in Social Media and Anti-Money Laundering for Every Lender

By rchrisman@robchrisman.com

(On the importance of Punctuation, thanks Bob!)

I'm not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. So when our anniversary rolled around, I wanted my wife to know how much I appreciated her tolerating me for the past 20 years. I ordered flowers and told the florist to enclose a card that read, "Thanks for putting up with me so long."

When my wife got the delivery, she called me at work.

"Just where do you think you going?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I said.

She read the card aloud as the florist had written it: "Thanks for putting up with me. So long."

Here's a great note I received from an originator in the Washington DC area: "I have a borrower who works for a Congressman. Their loan was denied because they cannot guarantee they will have a job in a month." Tis the season... But speaking of jobs, people like lists, and through Builder Magazine ABODO reports the top-ten cities for the top-five occupations, as ranked by employment density. Certainly Hurricane Matthew's damage will increase the need for construction employees in the Southeast.

"Mason-McDuffie Mortgage is excited to be the title sponsor for the Real Estate Marketing Mastermind retreat this weekend in Park City, Utah. We are excited to be joined in our sponsorship by Search Salt Lake, HousingWire Magazine, and Easy Agent Pro. Speaking at the retreat is our very own 'Real Estate CIO,' Jason Frazier. Tomorrow, Saturday October 8^th, Frazier, along with other Real Estate pros will be doing a Live Mastermind event online. They will be discussing marketing, social media, technology, and customer experience for the Real Estate & Mortgage industry. Frazier will also be doing a live takeover of Inman News's Snapchat account during the retreat. Seats are limited with almost 150 real estate pros registered from all over the world. If you would like to attend Saturday's online event, you can register here for free."

 

PRMG is partnering with The Mortgage News Network on New Centurion Roundtable Program. The event will be showcasing top producers (originators) in video format sharing their insight and how they have been successful in the mortgage business. The first video segment will go live Monday Oct 10^th, 2016 and features a group of elite top originators producing 100 loans or more a year or have other significant impact on the industry through volume, unique practices, mentorship or industry involvement. Click here for full story.

 

Compliance is the name of the game for residential lenders, whether it is new regulations coming our way or trying to figure out existing regulations. Steve Brown, president and CEO of PCBB, discusses the regulatory weight bankers feel every day using data from the FDIC website. ("While regulations can come from the OCC, Fed, CFPB and a host of other sources, we chose the FDIC because most community bankers in one way, shape, or form, funnel through there eventually.")

 

"We begin by pulling in all of the Financial Institution Letters (FILs) the FDIC has issued through the end of August for both 2016 and 2015 for comparison. FILs are addressed to CEOs of financial institutions on the FIL distribution list, which are generally, FDIC-supervised institutions. FILs are used to announce new regulations and policies, new FDIC publications, and a variety of other matters of principal interest to those responsible for operating a bank or savings association...through August there have been 58 FILs released vs. only 36 at the same point last year. That is about a 61% increase, which seems to be a big jump, 7.3 per month this year vs. about 4.5 last year.

 

"We went even deeper and took a detailed look at how many pages of regulations bankers would have to read through, interpret, route, discuss and deal with to really get an idea of how rough things are. Here we found that in 2015 you had to absorb about 2,058 pages (plus another 48 or so of informational stuff), while in 2016 you had to deal with 1,397 pages (plus another 98 or so of informational). All told, that means in just these two periods your team has had to deal with some 3,601 pages of regulatory flow and that is just through August. After annualizing, the deluge jumps to about 5,402 pages over the 2Y period. Then, when you consider there are about 261 workdays in a year and you adjust for 3 weeks of vacation, you end up with about 492 days in total to deal with all of this flow. So, on a per working day basis, your team needs to deal with about 11 pages on average of regulatory stuff just to keep up."

 

Attorney David Stein just published - through the MBA - Compliance Essentials:  Social Media & Digital Advertising Resource Guide. "It is not enough to simply use compliant advertisements, lenders need to have a formal risk management program and governance system. Maintaining oversight and control over social media, internet tactics and digital communication methods is the expectation of state and federal regulators. Lenders are now being closely scrutinized by states, and it is only a matter of time before the CFPB jumps aboard.

 

Are both banks and nonbanks required to perform an independent audit of their anti-money laundering ("AML") program? What are the requirements for such audit? Mortgage Quality Management & Research (MQMR) writes, "Yes, the Bank Secrecy Act ('BSA') requires all residential mortgage lenders and originators to perform an independent review or audit of their AML program. Although the BSA does not specifically set forth the time frame for performing such testing, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council ('FFIEC') indicated that sound practice is for an entity to perform an independent audit of its AML program at least every 12-18 months, commensurate with the entity's risk profile.

 

"Testing must be performed by both an independent and qualified party.  While this does not mean the audit cannot be performed by an employee, the individual or individuals completing the audit must be fully familiar with AML requirements and cannot be involved in any of the AML functions of the Company. As such, the Company designated AML Officer would be unable to perform the audit. For this reason, many entities engage outside service providers to perform independent audits of their AML program.

 

"Whoever performs the review should report directly to the entity's Board of Directors or Executive Management. Testing should cover all of the entity's activities and the results should be sufficiently detailed to assist the Board of Directors and/or Executive Management in identifying areas of weakness so that improvements may be made and additional controls may be established. Among other items, the Company's written policies and procedures should be reviewed as well as the qualifications of the AML Officer and the Company's training materials and attendance logs.

 

"In recent years, state regulators have commenced examining the AML programs of their supervised entities more closely. Many states now require entities to produce AML policies and procedures, as well as AML risk assessments and independent AML audit results as part of examinations. Failure to maintain these documents can oftentimes result in an adverse finding.  Some states also maintain their own money laundering regulations, such as California, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas.

 

"Most recently, on June 30, 2016, New York State's Department of Financial Services ("NYADFS") issued a final Anti-Terrorism Transaction Monitoring and Filtering Program regulation. The new regulation, which goes into effect January 1, 2017, requires regulated institutions (banks, check cashers and money transmitters) to maintain a Transaction Monitoring Program that monitors transactions for potential BSA/AML violations and Suspicious Activity Reporting. The regulated entities will have to annually submit a board resolution or senior officer compliance finding to the NYSDFS confirming the steps taken to ascertain compliance with this regulation. Nonbank mortgage lenders and originators are not currently covered by this regulation."

 

And of course lenders and investors continue to make changes based on the regulatory environment, both broad in scope and very detailed.

 

A new Seller Guide section has been added to clarify AmeriHome's requirements for first payment letters as follows: "AmeriHome requires a copy of the Borrower's first payment letter to be provided with the loan file delivered to AmeriHome including, at minimum: breakdown of the monthly payment, first payment due date and where to make the first payment. AmeriHome does not require first payment letters to be signed by borrowers unless required by Applicable Law."

 

NMLS launched new capabilities to streamline state licensing processes. A new business procedure to electronically process surety bonds now exists via the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS). Additionally, NMLS can now be used to electronically process criminal background checks for many more individuals at financial institutions. Both enhancements went live this week.

 

Although MWF supports both Lender Paid and Borrower Paid compensation, it is recommended that the Broker verify with their BDM to determine if they are eligible for Borrower Paid compensation. It is MWF's policy that once a transaction is originated, it needs to remain in the original compensation format throughout the process. As an example, if the loan starts as a Lender Paid transaction it must close as a Lender Paid transaction.  Switching between Borrower Paid and Lender Paid during the transaction is not allowed. This is effective on all new loan originations and all loans already in process.

 

Yesterday most fixed-income securities moved down in price, and therefore yields & rates moved higher, for the fifth straight session. The U.S. Dollar Index touched a five-week high, and the four-week moving average of Initial Jobless Claims figure hit a 43 year low. In fact, they've been below 300k for 83 consecutive weeks! And overseas European Central Bank Vice President Constancio said that the report earlier this week about a tapering off of its current asset purchase program is, "not correct, period." At the end of the day the 10-year note price had lost .250 to yield 1.74% versus 5-year notes and agency MBS prices worsened about .125.

 

But that was yesterday, and today we've had the September employment report. Non-farm Payrolls, expected to increase 170k, were only 159k. The Unemployment Rate, expected to drop to 4.8%, was 5.0%. And Hourly Earnings, expected to increase slightly, were +.2%. Later in the day we'll see some Fed President speakers, but the main focus was on this employment data. Does any of this matter? No really - steady as she goes. After it came out we find rates nearly unchanged with the 10-year's yield at 1.74% with agency MBS prices currently unchanged.