Regions Bank to refund $141M for illegal overdraft fees
By KEN SWEET and JAY REEVES The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Regions Bank for a second time in a decade was found charging illegal overdraft fees, the government said Wednesday, in a settlement that will require the bank to repay $141 million to customers and pay an additional $50 million in fines.
In an investigation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that between 2018 and 2021, Regions was charging overdraft fees on some ATM withdrawals as well as some debit card purchases, even after the Alabama-based bank told the customers they had enough funds in their account to cover the transactions.
Further the CFPB found that Regions’ executives knew the error in their systems was occurring, but held off making adjustments to their practices until the bank could find ways to replace the revenues lost from the fees. The CFPB said overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees — otherwise known as a bounced-check fee — were roughly 18% of the bank’s non-interest income in 2019.
“Regions Bank raked in tens of millions of dollars in surprise overdraft fees every year, even after its own staff warned that the bank’s practices were illegal,” Rohit Chopra, director of the agency, said in a statement. “Too often, large financial firms make a calculation that continuing to break the law is more profitable than following it. We have more work to do to change this mentality.”
In a statement, Regions said that while it disagreed with the bureau’s assessment of their business practices, it was pleased to put the settlement behind it.
“Over a year ago, Regions stopped charging this particular overdraft fee,” said Region’s Chief Legal Officer Tara Plimpton, in a statement. “We took this action as part of a broader series of enhancements … (that) include updating the bank’s posting order and transaction processing to give customers a clearer view of the money they have available for making purchases while avoiding fees.”
This is not the first time Regions has been fined for its overdraft fee practices. In 2015, the bureau ordered Regions to refund $49 million and pay a $7.5 million penalty for charging overdraft fees. Those Regions’ customers were charged for overdraft when they had opted out of the service.
Anthropic settles with authors in first-of-its-kind AI copyright infringement lawsuit
A U.S. district court is scheduled to consider whether to approve the settlement next week, in a case that marked the first substantive decision on how fair use applies to generative AI systems.
Under Trump, the Federal Trade Commission is abandoning its ban on noncompetes
Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson has called his agency's rule banning noncompetes unconstitutional. Still, he says protecting workers against noncompetes remains a priority.
Anthropic to pay authors $1.5B to settle lawsuit over pirated chatbot training material
The artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay authors $3,000 per book in a landmark settlement over pirated chatbot training material.
You can trust the jobs report, Labor Department workers urge public
A strongly-worded statement from Bureau of Labor Statistics workers comes a month after President Trump attacked the integrity of the jobs numbers they release monthly.
Headed to the FBI, Missouri’s Andrew Bailey opposed abortion, backed Trump
Andrew Bailey rose quickly to be state attorney general of Missouri where he built a record for fighting abortion and defending Donald Trump. Now he's a co-deputy director of the FBI.
How Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans are reacting to Trump’s National Guard threats
Even after a federal court ruled his use of the National Guard in LA was illegal, the president has weighed sending troops to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans. Here's where things stand in those cities.
