U.S. Bancorp, which acquired MUFG Union Bank late last year, has agreed to settle allegations that its predecessor company deceived customers about three different kinds of fees.
The settlement with the Office of the Comptroller resolves one of the regulatory matters that the Minneapolis-based bank inherited when it completed the purchase. Under a consent order with its regulator, members of the U.S. Bancorp board neither admitted nor denied that any wrongdoing had occurred.
The consent order calls for a $15 million fine, but a U.S. Bancorp spokesperson said that the company was indemnified by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the Japanese banking giant that previously owned MUFG Union. Mitsubishi UFJ is responsible for paying the fine, according to spokespeople for both companies.
The consent order deals with matters that MUFG Union Bank identified on its own, and which predate its acquisition by U.S. Bancorp, the U.S. Bancorp spokesperson said.
"The impacted customers and accounts were remediated by Union Bank," the U.S. Bancorp spokesperson said in an email. "We look forward to serving the needs of all our customers now that we have successfully converted Union Bank customers to U.S. Bank."
The OCC found that MUFG Union violated federal law by engaging in deceptive practices that it said were part of a pattern of misconduct, and which resulted in financial gain.
Between 2005 and 2020, MUFG Union Bank did not apply fee waivers and discounts, as it said it would do in its account disclosures, to certain customers who rented safe deposit boxes, according to the OCC.
From 2011 to 2021, some customers of MUFG Union's private bank program did not receive fee waivers and discounts that they were entitled to get, the OCC found.
And between 2013 and 2021, MUFG Union did not waive monthly service charges in certain situations, despite having committed to doing so. Specifically, customers who asked that their mortgages be linked to their deposit accounts in order to qualify for fee waivers did not always get the discount, according to the OCC.
The OCC also faulted MUFG Union for failing to state in its account disclosures that customers needed to affirmatively request that mortgage accounts be linked to deposit accounts in order to get the fees waived.
U.S. Bancorp
When the OCC gave conditional approval to the merger last fall,
The OCC stated at the time that U.S. Bancorp "shall undertake to fully and timely perform all of the obligations and responsibilities" that the consent order originally imposed on MUFG Union.
