Fifth Third is fined by US CFPB over fake bank accounts, auto repossessions
Recasts first paragraph; adds Fifth Third statement, accusations, settlement details, no admission of wrongdoing, byline
By Jonathan Stempel
July 9 (Reuters) -Fifth Third Bancorp FITB.O will pay $20 million in civil fines and offer redress to 35,000 harmed consumers to settle U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau charges it opened unauthorized accounts and illegally repossessed their cars.
The Cincinnati-based lender, which has about $215 billion of assets and 1,070 branches mainly in Midwestern and Southeastern U.S. states, did not admit or deny wrongdoing in agreeing to the two settlements announced by the CFPB on Tuesday.
Fifth Third will pay a $15 million fine and refund fees and costs to customers with fake accounts between 2010 and 2016.
It was also banned from setting sales quotas that give employees incentives to open the accounts, through a "cross-selling" strategy that also led to sanctions for other banks including Wells Fargo WFC.N.
Fifth Third will separately pay a $5 million fine and offer compensation to borrowers it forced to obtain car insurance that duplicated coverage they already had, or had their vehicles repossessed if they failed to comply.
The regulator said that between 2011 and 2019, Fifth Third "force-placed" or required unnecessary insurance more than 37,000 times, collected more than $12.7 million of "worthless" fees, and improperly repossessed nearly 1,000 vehicles.
One victim was an insurance agent who said Fifth Third assured him in 2016 that "everything is correct and that I actually do not owe anything," shortly before he woke up one morning to find his car missing.
The fake accounts settlement requires a judge's approval, and would resolve a CFPBlawsuit filed in March 2020.
"We are ordering the senior executives and board of directors at Fifth Third to clean up these broken business practices or else face further consequences," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.
Susan Zaunbrecher, Fifth Third's chief legal officer, said in a statement: "We have already taken significant action to address these legacy matters, including identifying issues and taking the initiative to set things right."
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Nick Zieminski
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
