This bill extends the deadline by which the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, Bureau of Financial Institutions must publish a notice of a final order in a newspaper during the decision-making process on an application for a charter, branch, merger, acquisition, conversion, subsidiary formation or other similar request. Additionally, the bill eliminates certain administrative fees charged to financial institutions based on their volume of consumer loans. The bill also eliminates the alternative approval process that allows the board of directors of a mutual financial institution, subject to written approval of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, to fix the rate of the directors' own compensation. The bill provides that when a credit union chartered in this State participates in a loan, the borrower must be a member of any one of the participating credit unions and any real estate securing the loan need not be located in this State. The bill aligns the laws that permit the disclosure of financial records to the Office of the Attorney General or a law enforcement agency when a financial institution or credit union has reasonable cause to believe that a disbursement requested by certain individuals may result in financial exploitation of an individual with the provisions in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 9-B, section 245 by clarifying that the required age of such an individual is 65 years of age or older and that individuals protected under the Adult Protective Services Act are included. The bill changes the definition of "supervisory agency" for the laws governing confidential financial records by adding the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and providing that any successor agency to an agency listed in the definition is considered to be a supervisory agency.

Statutes affected:
Bill Text LD 2072, HP 1385: 9-A.6, 9-B.162, 9-B.252, 9-B.326, 9-B.851