N.Y. City Councilwoman Kristin Hahn has introduced legislation to increase the city’s ability to assess federal personal loans for people in need, while also raising awareness of the importance of keeping up-to-date with the current market.
Hahn, whose district includes parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, is introducing a bill that would raise the city to the level of a third-party lender to help individuals with financial problems.
It would allow the citywide financial monitoring and enforcement authority to issue and collect federal loans.
The bill would be the third in three years to allow the financial monitoring authority to collect federal personal loan payments from individuals who can’t make payments on their loans, the New York Post reported.
The first bill, passed by the City Council in 2013, required the monitoring authority only to collect payments when a person is in default and not when a borrower defaults on their loan.
The second law required the oversight authority to monitor and collect payments on all loans in New York.
The new bill, which is being referred to the Financial Services Committee, would add a fourth condition to the new law, requiring the monitoring and collection authority to notify the city of any new delinquent loans.
Under the new bill that passed the council, the city would notify the monitoring agency of all new unpaid loans or any outstanding federal personal debt, if the monitoring report is received within five business days of receiving the report.
If the monitoring request is not received within the allotted time, the monitoring order would be automatically canceled.
Under Hahn’s legislation, the financial services oversight authority would be able to monitor up to five borrowers for each payment.
The city’s monitoring and review authority would also be able, under certain circumstances, to determine whether the monitoring has resulted in compliance with the requirements of the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, according to the bill.
Hens bill would also require that the monitoring office receive written notification of any loan default or delinquency, as well as information about the current rate of interest on any federal personal mortgage, before approving any federal debt payment, the Post reported.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)The city has a backlog of nearly $4.5 billion in outstanding federal loan balances, according a report last year by the New America Foundation.
About 70 percent of borrowers have a loan in default, and the remaining 20 percent are in repayment, according the New Republic.
The New York City financial monitoring program has been in place since 2008, when a former governor signed an executive order to create the agency.
The monitoring authority now serves as the citys primary source of information on outstanding federal loans, according its website.
The Financial Services Oversight Authority has been a bipartisan institution since the legislation was introduced in the House last year.
It is funded largely by the federal government, but the state of New York also provides funds.
The state, however, doesn’t contribute any of its own money to the federal agency.
The federal monitoring authority is overseen by a team of federal inspectors.
The group has issued subpoenas to more than 3,600 people, the Associated Press reported.