The US Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has levied a massive penalty against HSBC for contravening a consent order which it has now de-activated.

The OCC 'terminated' the consent order against the bank after deciding that it is complying with it at long last. It issued the order in April 2011 and amended it in February 2013 and in June 2015. This marks the end of 'business restrictions' against the bank that the OCC impoped in June 2015.

The order was related to the provision of mortgage services and is related to the Independent Foreclosure Review, which the US Government established to determine whether eligible homeowners suffered financial injury because of errors or other problems during their home foreclosure process in 2009-10. HSBC is now the last OCC-regulated mortgage service to come to the end of such an order. Other banking regulators were involved in the review, namely the Federal Reserve and the now-defunct Office of Thrift Supervision.

The bank has a long history of failing to correct deficiencies identified in the order; the OCC says that it was 'in violation' between 1 October 2014 and 30 September 2016. The regulator also says that HSBC failed to file payment change notices that complied with bankruptcy rules, which resulted in approximately $3½ million in remediation to borrowers. The bank is not admitting or denying any wrongdoing. The US Treasury will be the sole beneficiary of the payment.