Statewide Highlights

IMPORTANT INFORMATION INCLUDING ALERTS, WARNINGS & NOTICES

• Transmitter of Money Abroad Voluntarily Ceases Operations. AMPARO voluntary surrender of licensee notice. Amparo’s Foreign Exchange, Inc. ("AFE") voluntarily stopped accepting remittances as of July 20, 2010, ceased doing business August 31, 2010, and is in the process of surrendering its license. Consumers may contact Alexander Martin, Manager at One Hallidie Plaza, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94102, by phone at (415) 956-5503 or by Fax at (415) 956-2523. Consumers who wish to file a claim should call the DFI Consumer Information Desk's toll free number, 1-800-622-0620 or email consumer@dfi.ca.gov. Consumer complaint forms in English and Spanish are available at http://www.dfi.ca.gov/consumers/fileacomplaint.asp.
• Beginning August 2010, most State offices, including DFI, will be closed three days per month. Refer to the list of furlough Fridays to see which days offices will be closed.
• Quarterly Reporting - California Foreclosure Prevention Act (CFPA) - Order from the Commissioner of Financial Institutions requiring mortgage loan servicers that have obtained an exemption from the California Foreclosure Prevention Act to provide loan modification data within thirty (30) days after the end of each quarter.

DFI PRESS RELEASES

• State Closes Butte Community Bank - FDIC Information
• State Closes Sonoma Valley Bank - FDIC Information
• State Closes Pacific State Bank - FDIC Information

CONSUMER RESOURCES

• Follow DFI on Twitter!The Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) is now on Twitter. Join the conversations on Twitter at www.twitter.com. To follow general information, follow @CaliforniaDFI; to follow California Financial Literacy Month efforts, follow @CAFLM; and to follow Alana Golden, Public Information Officer, follow @DFI_Alana. By following us on Twitter, you will be able to track the latest news and happenings at DFI. It's very easy to follow someone on Twitter. And you do not need to send out tweets yourself. Go to www.twitter.com. Join the conversation, by clicking on Sign up now. Set up your account. Select any of the DFI user names to follow, again California_DFI or CAFLM or DFI_Alana. You can follow all three! To help keep you informed, DFI also provides RSS and a Listserv. Visit the following links to sign up. http://feeds.feedburner.com/dfipressreleases and http://www.dfi.ca.gov/publications/bulletins/default.asp#subscribe. For more information on DFI's communications efforts, including social networking, please contact Alana Golden, Public Information Officer, agolden@dfi.ca.gov or 916-323-7012.
• HUD Advances Fight Against Loan Modification Scams - Report a Scam!- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in partnership with the Loan Modification Scam Prevention Network has launched an online fraud prevention and reporting tool, PreventLoanScams.org. To report a loan scam in English and to report a loan scam in Spanish. For information on preventing and reporting loan scams in California.
• Consumers Warned to Avoid Forensic Loan Analysis Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., California Department of Real Estate (DRE) and State Bar of California are warning Californians to avoid forensic loan audits, the loan-modification industry's latest "phony foreclosure-relief service," in which homeowners pay up-front fees for a forensic review of their lender's practices, but are provided no actual foreclosure relief.
• Mortgage Modification ProgramThe U.S. Department of the Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) kicked off a nationwide campaign to help borrowers who are currently in the trial phase of their modified mortgages under the Obama Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) convert to permanent modifications. The modification program, which has helped over 650,000 borrowers, is part of the Administration’s broader commitment to stabilize housing markets and to provide relief to struggling homeowners and is a primary focus of financial stability efforts moving forward. Roughly 375,000 of the borrowers who have begun trial modifications since the start of the program are scheduled to convert to permanent modifications by the end of the year. Through the efforts being announced today, Treasury and HUD will implement new outreach tools and borrower resources to help convert as many trial modifications as possible to permanent ones.
• Foreclosure Prevention Toolkit - FDIC and other bank regulators are offereing a free tool kit of information that will help borrowers, community stakeholders and the banking industry avoid unnecessary foreclosures and stop foreclosure "rescue" scams that promise false hope to consumers at risk of losing their homes. The tool kit includes critical information to help borrowers know who to contact and what documents they need to have available to apply for a loan modification that could save their home from foreclosure. This tool kit also describes the warning signs of potential foreclosure "rescue" scams and how consumers, community stakeholders, and bankers can report scammers and prevent fraud.
• California Foreclosure Prevention Act - The California Foreclosure Prevention Act modifies the foreclosure process to provide additional time for borrowers to work out loan modifications while providing an exemption for mortgage loan servicers that have implemented a comprehensive loan modification program.
• DFI Consumer Brochures now available in English, Spanish, Chinese/Cantonese/Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese - Read and learn about: Who regulates my financial institution? How do I file a complaint? Tips for financial transactions and information on sending money to other countries.
• Financial Tips for Women - Educate yourself, set financial goals, get out of debt.
• 8 Tips for Financial Success - A solid grounding in fiscal responsibility is basic self-defense. Taking the time to learn and practice saving and budgeting, managing credit — controlling our personal finances rather than vice versa — will pay off in the long term. The following tips are reminders of how we can control our finances and improve our financial success. (CCEE, Dept. of Corporations, Dept. of Financial Institutions)

LICENSEE RESOURCES

• Federal Agencies Issue Final Rules to Implement S.A.F.E. Act Requirements for Registration of Mortgage Loan OriginatorsFederal agencies issued final rules requiring residential mortgage loan originators who are employees of national and state banks, savings associations, Farm Credit System institutions, credit unions, and certain of their subsidiaries (agency-regulated institutions) to meet the registration requirements of the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008 (S.A.F.E. Act).
• SCO Summer Newsletter and New Holder Handbook
• Responding to the Foreclosure Crisis - An Interim Report, June 2010 (FRBSF) - The Federal Reserve has been working to respond to the foreclosure crisis, leveraging its research, community affairs, and supervision and regulation functions to support innovative foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization strategies at the local level.
• Basic FDIC Insurance Coverage Permanently Increased to $250,000 Per Depositor - To help consumers, bankers and others understand how the new law affects deposit insurance coverage and to help consumers verify whether their deposit accounts are fully protected, the FDIC provides the following resources: Information on deposit insurance on the FDIC Web site: Updated brochures on deposit insurance coverage (including the basic guide, Deposit Insurance Summary, and the more comprehensive guide, Your Insured Deposits) and a new version of the "Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator" (EDIE), an interactive service that allows consumers to quickly and easily check whether their accounts are fully protected, are now available on the FDIC's Web site (www.fdic.gov). A toll-free consumer assistance line: Help and information about deposit insurance and other matters of interest to bank customers are available at 1-877-ASK-FDIC (1-877-275-3342) Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Eastern Time. For the hearing-impaired, the number is 1-800-925-4618.
• On June 30, 2010, DFI has posted the translated forms required by AB 1160 (Fong 2009) that residential mortgage lenders and finance lenders who negotiate primarily in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese must provide to consumers for loans secured by residential real property, beginning July 1, 2010. The forms contain a summary of key terms in each of these five languages and are based on the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Good Faith Estimate (GFE) form. Additional information regarding the forms can be found at Civil Code Section 1632.5.
  - Good Faith Estimate Form (GFE). Available in the following languages: Chinese - 汉语; Korean ; Spanish - Español; Tagalog; Vietnamese - Tính Từ and English.