Federal Reserve levies $35.1M in fines in mortgage-servicing enforcement actions

Five banking organizations were fined over their mortgage-servicing deficiencies

Federal Reserve levies $35.1M in fines in mortgage-servicing enforcement actions
The Federal Reserve Board has fined five banking organizations civil money penalties totaling $35.1 million over mortgage-servicing deficiencies.

The board announced the fines along with the termination of enforcement actions it issued in 2011 and 2012 over residential mortgage-loan servicing and foreclosure-processing issues. The actions were against 10 banking organizations, including the five that were fined.

The Fed levied $14 million against Goldman Sachs Group; $8 million against Morgan Stanley; $5.2 million against CIT Group, as successor to IMB HoldCo; $4.4 million against US Bancorp; and $3.5 million against PNC Financial Services Group.

With the fines previously assessed against other companies under mortgage-servicing enforcement actions, the board has now assessed total mortgage servicing-related penalties of about $1.1 billion against firms it supervises.

In addition to the five fined firms, the enforcement actions against Ally Financial, Bank of America, HSBC North America Holdings, JPMorgan Chase, and SunTrust Banks have been terminated by the Fed. The board said the move was based on evidence of sustainable improvements in the firms' oversight and mortgage servicing practices.

The board further announced the termination of joint enforcement actions it issued along with other federal financial regulatory agencies in 2011 against Lender Processing Services, which was succeeded by ServiceLink Holdings, and against MERSCORP Holdings, formerly known as MERSCORP. The actions, which addressed deficiencies related to the firm’s foreclosure services, were terminated based on evidence of sustainable improvements in their foreclosure-related practices.


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