Bank of America Fined $12 Million

Banking giant falsified mortgage date filed with federal regulators

One of America's largest banks has been ordered to pay a $12 million fine for filing false reports on mortgage documents.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined Bank of America for the bank's failure to report certain information, including applicant demographics, on mortgage loan documents.

“Bank of America violated a federal law that thousands of mortgage lenders have routinely followed for decades,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “It is illegal to report false information to federal regulators, and we will be taking additional steps to ensure that Bank of America stops breaking the law.”

Federal law requires that mortgage lenders collect demographic information on prospective borrowers as a way to prevent discrimination. The CFPB found that in a number of cases, Bank of America mortgage loan officers were not collecting information and then reporting that the applicants had simply declined to provide it.

Specifically, the CFPB found:

Hundreds of Bank of America loan officers reported that 100% of mortgage applicants chose not to provide their demographic data over at least a three month period. In fact, these loan officers were not asking applicants for demographic data, but instead were falsely recording that the applicants chose not to provide the information.

The $12 million penalty assessed for this violation of the law adds to the hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for illegal activity paid by Bank of America in recent years.

In 2022, Bank of America was fined $225 million for illegally freezing customer accounts. Earlier this year, the bank was fined $250 million for charging illegal overdraft fees and opening customer accounts without permission.

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