Bank of America to improve compliance practices, pay $30 million fine to OCC

[May 30, 2015]  (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp <BAC.N> agreed with U.S. regulators to improve its compliance practices and pay a fine for violations in lending rules toward military personnel.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) asked the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets to pay a penalty of $30 million due to non-home loan compliance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and unsafe non-home debt collection litigation practices.

The OCC, which regulates and supervises all national banks, also ordered "remediation" to about 73,000 affected customer accounts.

"The enforcement action is intended to correct deficiencies in the bank's practices and procedures related to its SCRA- compliance program," the OCC said on Friday.

The order covers collections litigation from several years ago for a small percentage of credit card and deposit overdraft customers who defaulted on their account, BofA said.

BofA shifted its compliance group to risk oversight group from the legal department earlier this year after regulators warned big banks to adopt more ethical internal cultures.

(Reporting by Avik Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.