NewsWatch Today

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory to help financial institutions better detect and report potentially illicit transactions related to Iran. The advisory provides information on the threats the Iranian regime poses to the U.S. financial system, describes deceptive financial strategies that the Iranian regime uses to evade sanctions, and provides red flag indicators related to specific malign activities and typologies.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking input on proposed modifications to the Underserved Markets Plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The “duty to serve” plans require the enterprises to serve three specified underserved markets—manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation, and rural housing.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revised eligibility requirements for private mortgage insurers, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced. The updates include changes to: risk-based asset requirements, the treatment of approved risk-transfer transactions, and risk-transfer credit arising from counterparty risk associated with reinsurance transactions. The standards establish minimum financial and operational requirements for doing business with the enterprises.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston researchers encouraged stakeholders to continue collaborating on the development of payment tokenization. Noting that tokenization mitigates risk by eliminating the need to store and transmit a customer’s primary account number, a new paper says that collaboration will help expand its use in e-commerce, evaluate third-party token service providers, educate consumers, and anticipate future innovations.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said financial institutions affected by Hurricane Florence should contact FinCEN and their functional regulator as soon as practicable to discuss any delays in their ability to file Bank Secrecy Act reports. FinCEN can be reached at [email protected].

Federal regulators exempted loans for property and casualty insurance policies from Customer Identification Program rules. Banks engaging in insurance premium finance lending must continue to comply with all other regulatory requirements implementing the Bank Secrecy Act, including the requirement to file suspicious activity reports.

Facebook announced a security breach affecting nearly 50 million accounts.

The House passed legislation to permanently extend the lower individual tax rates included in the tax reform law signed late last year. Known as “Tax Reform 2.0,” the package of bills would lock in lower rates set to expire at the end of 2025, though it is not expected to be taken up by the Senate. In addition to cutting the top C-corp rate, the ICBA-supported Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the individual rates affecting Subchapter S banks.

The Justice Department told members of Congress that it is evaluating whether to issue guidance on web accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Responding to a bipartisan letter from 103 members of Congress requesting clarity, the DOJ stood by its interpretation that the law applies to websites, but left room for a flexible approach.

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection said it will relocate its southeast regional office from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Ga., in late 2019. The bureau already has regional offices in New York, Chicago and San Francisco that host supervision staff, enforcement attorneys and other personnel. The southeast regional team has been temporarily based out of the bureau’s D.C. headquarters since its inception.

A provision of S. 2155 requiring credit reporting agencies to freeze consumer credit reports at no charge took effect Friday. These security or credit freezes restrict access to credit files to reduce identity theft.

ICBA and other banking groups called on the IRS to reconsider its approach to implementing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through businesses. In a joint comment letter, ICBA said the agency should allow all permissible banking activities to be eligible for the deduction.