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Independent monitor Joseph A. Smith, Jr., has credited JPMorgan Chase with $3.3 billion in consumer relief under the terms of the 2013 JPMorgan Chase Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Settlement, according to a release from Smith's office on Thursday.
In his fifth report on Chase's progress toward satisfying the $4 billion consumer relief requirement of the settlement, Smith confirmed that Chase has provided 151,436 borrowers with a combined total of $3,324,010,726 as of December 31, 2014. The deadline for Chase to provide the complete amount of $4 billion in consumer relief is December 31, 2017.
"My team and I have completed an in-depth review of Chase’s consumer relief activities through the end of 2014," Smith said. "As a result of our work, I have credited Chase with more than three-fourths of the $4 billion it must provide under the settlement."
The relief may be distributed in four different types, each of which are credited differently, according to Smith: Modification (forgiveness and forbearance), rate reduction and refinancing, low-to-moderate income and disaster area lending, and anti-blight. The category in which Chase provided the most consumer relief to date is modification (forgiveness and forbearance), which has accounted for $1.51 billion–nearly half of the $3.3 billion the monitor has credited to date. Chase has provided about $1.17 billion in low-to-moderate income and disaster area lending, and about $874 million in rate reduction and refinancing.
The report released Thursday includes Chase's self-reported gross consumer relief and the amount of consumer relief credit the bank claimed for the first quarter of 2015, an amount that has not yet been validated by Smith. According to Chase's internal review group, the bank provided 6,671 borrowers with an additional $2.31 million in creditable consumer relief during the first quarter of 2015. Smith said he and his team are in the process of confirming Chase's Q1 2015 consumer credit relief and he will issue a report this fall.
"We continue to help thousands of families become homeowners and assist those who may be struggling," a Chase spokesman said in an email to DS News. "Our efforts have helped more than 158,000 families through more than $19 billion in total mortgage relief."
Chase settled with the government in November 2013 for a then-record $13 billion amid claims that the bank, along with Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, sold faulty residential mortgage-backed securities to investors prior to the financial crisis. Chase was required to make $9 billion in direct payments to government agencies and five states and provide $4 billion in consumer relief. Chase's $13 billion settlement remained a record amount for one institution settling with the government until Bank of America settled for $16.65 billion in August 2014 over similar claims of selling faulty mortgage-backed securities.
Click here to read more about the settlement. Click here to see Smith's complete report that was released Thursday.
