Tomorrow, March 30, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing, “The End of Overdraft Fees? Examining the Movement to Eliminate the Fees Costing Consumers Billions.”
The Committee memorandum references two pending bills dealing with overdrafts. One bill is H.R. 4277, the “Overdraft Protection Act of 2021,” which would limit the number of overdraft fees a bank can charge on a monthly and annual basis and prevent financial institutions from re-ordering transactions to increase overdraft fees. The other bill, which is unnumbered, is titled the “Expanding Access to Affordable Bank Accounts Act.” It would require large depository institutions and encourage small depository institutions to offer at least one account option that does not charge consumers certain fees, such as overdraft and NSF fees.
The witnesses scheduled to appear are:
- Jeremie Greer, Co-Founder/Executive Director, Liberation in a Generation
- Elyse Hicks, Consumer Policy Counsel, Americans for Financial Reform
- Paul Kundert, President and CEO, UW Credit Union
- Santiago Sueiro, Senior Policy Analyst, UnidosUS
- Todd Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University