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Since early June 2020 when cries for racial justice resulted in a period of social unrest in the U.S., federal and state financial institution regulators have taken meaningful, proactive steps to acknowledge financial inequality issues, reach out to traditionally underserved populations to expand access to credit, and further protect consumers from discrimination. While it remains…

The CFPB, OCC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, and NCUA have issued a joint statement “to specifically encourage” banks, savings associations, and credit unions “to offer responsible small-dollar loans to both consumers and small businesses” in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.  The statement builds on the March 19 statement issued jointly by the OCC, FDIC, and Federal…

The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions of the House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a hearing entitled “An Examination of Regulators’ Efforts to Preserve and Promote Minority Depository Institutions” on November 20, 2019.  In its first hearing on minority depository institutions, the Subcommittee examined the unique challenges facing MDIs and the…

The constitutional question that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide in Seila Law is whether the CFPB’s single-director-removable-only-for-cause structure violates separation of powers.  A ruling by the Supreme Court that separation of powers requires the President to be able to remove the CFPB Director without cause would not impact either the OCC or…

PBI’s Consumer Financial Services and Banking Law Update will take place on October 29, 2019, in Philadelphia (and by simulcast in Allentown, Bellefonte, Butler, Chambersburg, Easton, Mechanicsburg, Pittsburgh, West Chester, and York, Pennsylvania).

Alan Kaplinsky, Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group, and Mark Furletti, Vice-Chair of the Group, will moderate an experienced…

Last week, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal took the lead in pursing two actions against the U.S. Department of Education related to the Department’s alleged refusals to cooperate with state investigations of student loan servicers and for-profit schools.

On September 16, 2019, New Jersey, along with 16 other attorneys general, including New York, Colorado,…

In its recently published Summer 2019 Newsletter, the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (“DFI”) reported that it had interpreted the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”) broadly to apply the SCRA’s 6% interest rate cap to a loan agreement entered into only by a servicemember’s spouse.  Generally, the SCRA provides for a 6% interest…

The OCC and FDIC have filed a joint amicus brief in a Colorado federal district court arguing that the court should affirm the decision of a bankruptcy court holding that a non-bank loan assignee could charge the same interest rate the bank assignor could charge under Section 27(a) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, 12…

On August 21, 2019, FinCEN issued an advisory (the “Advisory”) alerting financial institutions to various financial schemes and mechanisms employed by fentanyl and synthetic opioid traffickers to facilitate the illegal fentanyl trade and launder its proceeds.

As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), “fentanyl is a synthetic (man-made) opioid 50 times…

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced the development of a portal that would allow financial institutions to join a planned real-time electronic system for verifying the identity of credit applicants.  The new Consent Based Social Security Number (SSN) Verification (eCBSV) service will be an important tool in the fight against identity theft and other…