Message from Division of Consumer Services Director Cindy Fazio

The Dog Days of Summer

I hope everyone is healthy and your businesses are thriving. It seems the headlong rush to a post-pandemic world continues with travel increases for summer vacations and kids planning for in-person school in the fall. I know I am growing more accustomed to encountering pre-pandemic volumes of traffic. And although annoying I am happy to see road construction as it signifies more people are getting back to work.

We were successful in achieving re-accreditation for our mortgage programs and were also successful in obtaining our first accreditation for our money services businesses program. I talked at length about the accreditation process in the last newsletter, please access that from our website if you want a refresher on that topic.

Our new program, the Center for FinTech Information, launched to facilitate communication with start-ups and fintech companies continues to garner interest. Common inquiries now are around decentralized finance business models. These are often complex businesses with considerable risk for non-well informed consumers. Our website - https://dfi.wa.gov/fintech - has tools for these innovative companies as well as guidance and information for interested consumers.

For those in the mortgage industry, please see our Rulemaking Update for information on the rulemaking to implement SB 5077, the amendments to the acts that allow mortgage loan originators to work from home without that home being licensed as a company branch. We have received very few comments. Your comments are very critical to our rulemaking. Thanks to those who have commented.

Please also note that the NMLS system along with the NMLS Consumer Access will be down July 22-26.

Finally, be sure to read the article on ransomware. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for you to safeguard your information systems. Even smaller and medium sized businesses are potential targets. Some may say those business even more so because they may not see the need for safety measures. We have lots of helpful information on our website. Trust me, you don’t want to be that business whose system is overtaken.

Thank you for everything you do for Washington consumers and our economy.

• Message from Cindy Fazio
• DFI Mortgage Assistance Team Expands
• NMLS Closure July 22-26
• From the Field - Common Exam Findings
• Who Needs to be Licensed as a Manager and Have a Supervisory Plan?
• Cybersecurity and Ransomware Threats to Nondepository Financial Institutions
• Rulemaking Update
• Mortgage Updates
• Check Casher and Seller Updates
• Escrow Updates
• Money Services Updates