WASHINGTON DC, January 3, 2007  – The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) announced today that Chuck Cross has joined CSBS as Director of Special Projects, effective Jan. 1, 2007.

Cross will support the CSBS mortgage and non-depository regulatory and education initiatives.

Cross comes to the position from the Washington Department of Financial Institutions where he served as director for the Department’s Division of Consumer Services.  As Division Director he supervised approximately 50 attorneys, examiners and professional staff in the licensing, examination and enforcement of over 20,000 non-depository financial institutions and individuals including mortgage companies, finance companies, payday lenders, check cashers and sellers, money transmitters, currency exchangers, escrow companies and refund anticipation loan facilitators.

In 2005 Cross was responsible for the implementation of regulations for the payday lending industry, and in 2006 he guided the passing of two agency bills covering the licensing of loan originators and the criminal prosecution of mortgage fraud.  Most recently Cross piloted a team of regulatory and industry professionals in a negotiated rule writing process for the mortgage industry in Washington.

Prior to his promotion to Director in 2003, Cross was the Division’s Enforcement Chief where he was responsible for over 200 regulatory enforcement actions and criminal referrals in Washington State.  He was one of the key investigators, architects and negotiators of the multistate settlement with Household Finance and Beneficial Finance in 2002, which was the largest predatory lending case to date.  From late 2002 through 2005 he investigated Ameriquest Mortgage and served on the multi-state Executive Committee for the country’s second largest predatory lending case, which was filed and settled in March 2006.

Cross is a former federal and state bank examiner with 21 years experience in the financial industry, and 18 of those years as a regulator. From 1990 through 1993 he was the vice president and general manager of a mortgage and escrow company.  Cross is the immediate past president for the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators (AARMR), the past chair of the AARMR Mortgage Fraud Committee, and has been a subject matter expert and instructor for the National White Collar Crime Center.  He is a Certified Fraud Examiner with a degree in Accounting/Economics.

“Chuck’s extensive experience in regulating non-depository financial institutions as well as his background in training examiners and law enforcement bring a new dimension to the CSBS team,” said CSBS President and CEO Neil Milner.