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    Consumer Bureau Seeks to Undo Settlement and Repay Mortgage Lender

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to return a $105,000 penalty it collected last fall when it resolved a discrimination lawsuit.Under President Trump, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped nearly a dozen enforcement cases brought during the Biden administration, ending lawsuits against banks and lenders for a variety of financial practices that the watchdog agency no longer considers illegal.But on Wednesday, the bureau went a step further: It is seeking to give back $105,000 that a mortgage lender paid to settle racial discrimination claims last fall.In an especially strange twist, the case — against Townstone Financial, a small Chicago-based lender — was brought during Mr. Trump’s first term by Kathleen Kraninger, the director he appointed to run the consumer bureau.Russell Vought, who became the agency’s acting director last month, said it had “used radical ‘equity’ arguments to tag Townstone as racist with zero evidence, and spent years persecuting and extorting them.”In its filing asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to set aside the settlement it approved in November, the bureau said it had found “significant undisclosed problems” in its handling of the lawsuit, which the new leadership called an “unmerited” complaint that violated the defendants’ First Amendment free-speech rights.The case began in 2020 when the consumer bureau accused Townstone of redlining and breaking fair-lending laws by discouraging residents living in majority-Black neighborhoods from applying for its housing loans. It homed in on comments made during the company’s radio show and podcast, “The Townstone Financial Show,” saying they were intended to rebuff Black borrowers or those seeking to buy homes in certain neighborhoods.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Crypto Venture Introduces a Stablecoin

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      World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company started by Donald J. Trump and his sons, announced on Tuesday that it was planning to sell a digital currency called a stablecoin, deepening the president’s financial ties to crypto as his administration relaxes enforcement of the industry.The stablecoin would be known as USD1, the company wrote in a social media post, without revealing when it would go on sale. Stablecoins, a popular form of cryptocurrency, are designed to maintain a constant value of $1, making them useful for many types of crypto transactions.“No games. No gimmicks. Just real stability,” World Liberty Financial posted on its X account.The stablecoin is the fourth digital currency that Mr. Trump and his business partners have marketed to the public over the last year. World Liberty already offers a cryptocurrency called WLFI. This month, World Liberty announced it had sold $550 million of those digital coins. A business entity linked to Mr. Trump receives a 75 percent cut of the sales.Days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump also started selling a so-called memecoin — a type of digital currency based on an online joke or a celebrity mascot. Melania Trump put her own memecoin on the market that same weekend.Mr. Trump has made aggressive forays into the crypto market as his administration eases enforcement of crypto firms and rolls back regulations. His efforts to profit from an industry he oversees amount to an enormous conflict of interest, with virtually no precedent in American history, government ethics experts have said.World Liberty’s stablecoin adds to that messy knot of business conflicts. Congress is considering legislation to regulate stablecoins that could reach Mr. Trump’s desk before the end of the year. In a speech at a crypto conference this month, Mr. Trump called for “simple, common sense rules” for stablecoins, saying they would “expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why the Fed’s Job May Get a Lot More Difficult

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      President Trump’s plans risk stoking inflation and denting growth, an undesirable combination that economists warn could lead to much tougher trade-offs for the central bank.When inflation was too high and the economy was resilient in the aftermath of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve’s decision to sharply raise interest rates beginning in 2022 seemed like a no-brainer. The same was true just over two years later when inflation had fallen sharply from its recent peak and the labor market had started to cool off. That paved the way for the central bank to lower borrowing costs by a percentage point in 2024.What made those decisions relatively straightforward was the fact that the Fed’s goals of achieving low and stable inflation and a healthy labor market were not in conflict with each other. Officials did not have to choose between safeguarding the economy by lowering rates and staving off price increases by either keeping rates high or raising them further.Economists worry that could soon change. President Trump’s economic agenda of tariffs, spending cuts and mass deportations risks stoking inflation while simultaneously denting growth, an undesirable combination that could lead to much tougher trade-offs for the Fed.“We’re getting to a harder decision point for the Fed,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, the payroll processing company.Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, indicated little concern about this dilemma on Wednesday after the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged for a second-straight meeting in light of a highly “uncertain” economic outlook.Mr. Powell did warn that “further progress may be delayed” on getting inflation back to the central bank’s 2 percent target because of tariffs. A combination of rising inflation and weaker growth would be “a very challenging situation for any central bank,” he conceded, but it was not one the Fed currently found itself in.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Deal Makers Restaff for the Trump Era

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      Clients increasingly want to know how to navigate shifting diplomatic alliances, unexpected conflicts and an unpredictable American administration.Centerview Partners, one of the financial world’s top independent investment banks, has long been known as a largely Democratic outpost. One of its leaders, Blair Effron, is among the most influential fund-raisers in Democratic politics, while a longtime counselor is Bob Rubin, the former Treasury secretary. Rahm Emanuel, the erstwhile Obama chief of staff, also worked for the firm.This week, Centerview took a step that was widely seen as a counterbalance: It hired Reince Priebus, the first White House chief of staff in the first Trump administration and a finance chairman of Trump’s second inauguration committee, as a senior adviser. In other words, someone who can help the bank and its blue-chip clients “speak Republican” better in the Trump era.It’s not the only firm looking.“This is a transactional administration,” Steve Lipin, the founder of Gladstone Place Partners, said on a panel at last week’s Tulane University Corporate Law Institute, a major gathering of mergers and acquisitions advisers.He added that a new step for an increasing number of transactions is to “email Howard Lutnick,” the Wall Street financier who is now Trump’s commerce secretary.Deal advisers have plumbed their Rolodexes for connections to anyone with pull in Trumpworld. (There are limits, one recruiting executive said: While relationships matter in this administration, the aim is to find someone who’s respected — but not “too MAGA.”)These new hires underscore how much the business of mergers and acquisitions has evolved beyond dispensing advice on capital structures and valuations. Clients increasingly want to know how to navigate a global landscape pockmarked with military conflicts, trade battles, oil shocks and political revolutions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Buying a Home? Without the CFPB, You Need to Be Your Own Watchdog.

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      The C.F.P.B. had kept a close eye on mortgage lenders. But with the bureau hobbled, consumers should take several steps, starting with shopping for the best mortgage rates.House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their prepandemic level. Now, with the spring home buying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled.Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the home buying process, consumer advocates say home buyers need to be their own watchdogs.“Now, when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled,” said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away.”Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000.What role has the consumer bureau played in home buying?The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-8 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders. In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to “wrongful” foreclosures.On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender’s lawyers said Draper and Kramer “considers the matter closed and denies” the bureau’s claims, but chose to settle in part to avoid “protracted legal costs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Abrdn’s Rebrand Reversal and a History of Corporate Missteps

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      A British investment firm restored most of the vowels to its name after a widely ridiculed revamp that showed the pitfalls of trying to look cool in the digital age.Hw cn brnds sty cl? Nt by drpping vwls, one of Britain’s biggest investment firms concluded this week, when it announced it was adding back the “e’s” to its name four years after dropping them.The 200-year-old company is now called aberdeen group, effectively reversing a decision to rebrand as abrdn in 2021 in a bid to pitch itself as a “modern, agile, digitally-enabled brand.”The decision four years ago was widely ridiculed. James Windsor, who took over as chief executive last year, said on Tuesday that it was time to “remove distractions” — less than two months after saying he had no plans to change the name.Corporate rebrands can be critical to signifying a strategy shift but they also come with risks when companies veer too far from their purpose. Aberdeen’s vowel-dropping rebrand was just the latest example of a company reversing course after a new name failed to lift its performance or its reputation with customers.The Perils of Chasing TrendsRemoving vowels from brand names or using a name with a deliberately misspelled word was not uncommon in the 2000s, especially among trendy technology companies. Businesses including Grindr, Flickr, Tumblr and even twttr, as Twitter (now X) was initially called, embraced the aesthetic. But today, that style can look out of date and embarrassing, said Laura Bailey, a senior lecturer in linguistics at the University of Kent.Often, when companies try to appear trendy, “by the time they get to it, it’s been around for too long,” Dr. Bailey said. “It’s like your parents doing it — it doesn’t seem right.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      E.C.B. Cuts Interest Rates Again, With an Uncertain Path Ahead

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      Vows by European leaders in increase borrowing to ramp up military spending has reshaped the fiscal picture that the central bank must confront.The European Central Bank lowered interest rates on Thursday, the sixth consecutive cut, as the economic landscape for the region rapidly changes.The bank’s key rate was cut by a quarter point to 2.5 percent, which was widely expected as inflation in the region has stayed relatively low and economic growth has been weak.But the future path of interest rates has become increasingly uncertain as policymakers face a seismic shift in Europe. In the past few days, European leaders have vowed to increase military spending by hundreds of billions of euros as they are no longer sure of their alliances with the United States.The plans, which include borrowing more, notably in Germany, have led to yields on European government bonds jumping higher, particularly on long-dated debt, and rising borrowing costs. The prospects of more spending combined with lower interest rates has helped to push stocks up, with Germany’s benchmark index, the DAX, at a record high. And the euro is also rallying against the U.S. dollar to its strongest level in four months, further easing inflationary pressures.This has reshaped the fiscal picture in Europe at a time when the central bank was grappling with the prospect of President Trump imposing tariffs on the region.There has been division among the members of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council about how much lower interest rates need to go. Overall, policymakers have signaled that they were aiming for a neutral rate, where policy would neither restrict nor boost the economy. But they said they would only know that the rate had been reached when they were at it.On Thursday, the central bank said monetary policy was “becoming meaningfully less restrictive,” a sign that policymakers are drawing closer to pausing interest rate cuts.With yields rising, traders are signaling that there will be just one more rate cut, potentially in April or June.The eurozone economy has been sluggish since late last year, and policymakers have substantially cut interest rates — lowering them by 1.5 percentage points since last summer — to support businesses and households with easier access to loans. The extent of economic weakness has taken policymakers by surprise as consumers have been slow to spend more in response to lower inflation. But the central bank is still forecasting the economy will pick up later this year.Still, the central bank forecast slightly slower growth than it did three months ago, anticipating lower exports and weak investment as businesses contend with uncertainty over trade policy. The eurozone economy is now forecast to grow 0.9 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year.Inflation in the eurozone slowed to 2.4 percent in February, data published earlier this week showed, down from 2.5 percent the month before. Inflation in the services sector, which has been frustratingly stubborn for policymakers, also slowed to 3.7 percent, from 3.9 percent in January. More

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      How Consumers Can Protect Themselves With the CFPB on Pause

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      Rules on bank and credit card fees, medical debt and payment apps are in limbo. One thing you can do is carefully check your financial statements, one expert says.With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily.“Everything is on pause right now,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace with Consumer Reports. “So it’s back on consumers to be extra diligent.” Ms. Hand previously spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including overseeing complaints and consumer education, before departing in 2022.In early February, the Trump administration ordered the consumer bureau to mostly cease operations. It closed its Washington headquarters, fired some employees and put most of the rest of the staff on administrative leave, and opted not to seek funding for its activities. Several lawsuits are challenging the administration’s actions. On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered the bureau to halt firing workers and not to delete data, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday.The administration, however, has already dialed back enforcement — dropping, for instance, a suit accusing an online lender of promoting free loans that actually carried high interest rates. On Thursday, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit that it had brought in January accusing Capital One of cheating customers out of some $2 billion in interest.It’s a stark change for an agency that had been energetic in adopting rules and filing lawsuits aimed at aiding consumers. Under the Biden administration, the bureau moved to reduce or eliminate various fees charged by banks and other financial firms and to remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports, and it fined a major credit reporting bureau for misleading consumers about credit freezes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Citigroup Makes (and Then Fixes) an $81 Trillion Mistake

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      The bank temporarily credited a customer’s account with trillions of dollars, adding to scrutiny of risk management systems after a series of errors.We all make mistakes on the job. But rarely do they involve moving funds that dwarf the gross domestic product of every country in the world.Citigroup accidentally credited a client’s account with $81 trillion when it meant to send only $280, the latest mistake at a bank that is struggling to repair its reputation after a string of errors in recent years.The massive transfer, which occurred last April and far exceeds Citi’s stock market value of about $150 billion, was initially missed by two employees and was caught 90 minutes after it was posted, The Financial Times first reported. No funds left the bank, and Citi told the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency about the error, calling it a “near miss.”The mistake was the latest in a string of glitches at the bank. In 2022, a Citi employee caused a crash in Europe by accidentally adding a zero to a trade, igniting a sell-off that at one point erased 300 billion euros, or about $322 billion, from European stocks. Last year, British regulators fined Citi 62 million pounds, about $78 million, for the incident.In 2020, Citigroup accidentally wired $900 million to a group of lenders locked in a bitter fight with Revlon, the beauty company.That year, U.S. regulators also fined Citi $400 million, saying the bank had failed to address issues in its risk management procedures and internal controls.Citi’s problems with technology and internal systems contributed to the departure of Michael Corbat as chief executive of the bank in 2021. Jane Fraser, who succeeded Mr. Corbat, has said improving risk and controls is a priority, but regulators fined Citi $136 million last year for not making enough progress in fixing its data-management issues.Citi said in a statement that its systems prevented the transfer from actually being made. “Despite the fact that a payment of this size could not actually have been executed, our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry,” the company said.Isabella Kwai More