British banking giant HSBC Holdings PLC is to pay more than US$600 million to US authorities for its abusive mortgage lending and foreclosure practices in the housing market, officials said on Friday.
HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, is to pay US$470 million to settle the allegations by the US government, 49 US states and the District of Columbia, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
“This agreement is the result of a coordinated effort between federal and state partners to hold HSBC accountable for abusive mortgage practices,” Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery said in the statement.
Separately, the US Federal Reserve announced it had fined HSBC US$131 million for “deficiencies in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing.”
Under the settlement agreement, HSBC is to pay US$370 million in consumer relief by July to help homeowners struggling with their mortgages. Part of the payment is to be used to reduce the amount of principal owed by homeowners at risk of default.
The bank is also to pay US$100 million, including US$59.3 million that would go into a fund run by US states to help borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and 2012.
In addition, HSBC are required to implement new standards aimed in part to prevent the foreclosure abuses of the past, including robo-signing, the practice of approving mortgage applications with minimal to no vetting.
Abusive lending practices were a key factor in the subprime crisis that led to the collapse of the US housing market in 2006, which in turn led to the 2008 financial crisis and international recession.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last