Newsroom

HSBC North America Holdings Inc. and HSBC Finance Corporation will pay $131 million in assessed penalties to the Federal Reserve for alleged deficiencies in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing.

The Fed Board's penalty is the maximum allowed by law, which the board says takes into account "the circumstances of HSBC's unsafe and unsound practices and foreclosure activities."

The penalty is being assessed in conjunction with a $470 million settlement HSBC announced last week with the Justice Department, other federal agencies and state attorneys general related to alleged mortgage origination, servicing and foreclosure abuses. The Fed said its penalty was similar to those it assessed in 2012 and 2014 against six other mortgage servicers that had reached similar agreements with the Justice Department and state attorneys general.

The Fed Board also issued an enforcement action against HSBC in 2011 in response to servicing and foreclosure-related deficiencies. That action was among a group of 14 corrective actions against Fed-supervised mortgage servicers or parent holding companies for unsafe and unsound practices.