New Mexico Joins 43 States In Settlement With ACI Payments, Inc. For Unauthorized Transactions From Mr. Cooper Customer Accounts

Submitted by Carol A. Clark
on October 20, 2023
- 10:17 am

NMRLD News:

SANTA FE — This week, the Financial Institutions Division of the Regulation and Licensing Department (NMRLD) and 43 other state financial agencies announced that they have reached settlements with ACI Payments, Inc., for erroneously initiating electronic transactions totaling $2.3 billion from the accounts of 480,000 mortgage-holders serviced by Mr. Cooper (formerly known as Nationstar Mortgage, LLC).

State regulators levied $10 million in fines through a multistate enforcement action led by regulators from Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Texas with support from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. Additionally, 50 state attorneys general levied $10 million in fines to ACI, in coordination with state regulators.

ACI Payments, a subsidiary of ACI Worldwide Corp., is a state-regulated money services business licensed in New Mexico and nearly all other U.S. states (NMLS ID 936777). Mr. Cooper offered ACI’s Speedpay product for its customers to schedule their monthly mortgage payments, enabling automatic transfers of authorized mortgage payments from their personal bank accounts to Mr. Cooper. The violations occurred when ACI Payments erroneously used live customer data in a test of its Speedpay platform, causing unexpected and sometimes multiple mortgage payments to come from customer accounts. In some cases, these transactions exposed consumers to overdraft or insufficient funds fees.

“ACI Payments’ neglect in following proper testing protocols resulted in harm to New Mexico consumers, initiating more than 9,100 erroneous transactions from the accounts of unsuspecting mortgagees,” Financial Institutions Director Mark Sadowski said. “The Financial Institutions Division is pleased to join with state regulators and attorneys general to hold the company accountable for its actions on behalf of New Mexicans who were affected.”

Upon notification of the incident from ACI Payments, state regulators commenced a multistate money transmission investigation reviewing all aspects of the event, including investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding the erroneous transactions, evaluating consumer impact, analyzing the root cause of the incident, and evaluating the remedial steps taken by the company.

This enforcement action orders the following of ACI Payments, Inc.:

Risk and Compliance Programs – Maintain a comprehensive Enterprise Risk Management Program and a Third-Party Risk Management Program tailored to the nature, size, complexity and risk profile of ACI.
Agreement Monitoring – Regular reporting (for two years) to a state regulator monitoring committee to ensure both the adequacy of the risk management programs and compliance with the order.
Administrative Costs and Penalties – Payment of $10 million in fines for administrative costs and penalties.

State financial regulators license and supervise over 33,000 nonbank financial services companies through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS), including mortgage companies, money services businesses, consumer finance providers and debt collectors. New Mexico consumers can submit complaints about nonbank financial services companies by visiting the Financial Institutions Division’s website. Consumers can also verify that a company is licensed to do business in New Mexico, and view past enforcement actions, by visiting NMLS Consumer Access.