The recent American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators Annual Conference included a presentation highlighting the rising use of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in the Financial Services industry. As this will clearly be an ongoing focus of all regulators, not just residential mortgage regulators, we thought a short summary of the presentation, and some or our reactions to the presentation, might be of interest.… Continue Reading

A federal judge has dismissed a high-profile case involving allegations that a home appraiser was racially biased in his appraisal.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled that Nathan Connolly and the estate of Shani Mott, who passed away in March of 2024, failed to provide an appraisal expert to support their claims against Shane Lanham and his company, 20/20 Valuations, LLC.… Continue Reading

The Trump Administration can, among other things, resume plans to begin firing more than 1,400 employees at the CFPB, two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last Friday.

In a 2-1 majority opinion, the D.C. Circuit dissolved a preliminary injunction issued by District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson.… Continue Reading

Today on our podcast, we’re releasing a repurposed recording of our July 23, 2025, webinar titled “Student Lending Legislation and Litigation: 2025 Mid-Year Review.”

The webinar features esteemed partners John Culhane and Tom Burke, who dive into the intricacies of student lending litigation and regulatory developments. As a senior partner in the Consumer Financial Services Group, John Culhane shares his extensive knowledge on higher education finance, focusing on state legislation and private student loan litigation.… Continue Reading

As we previously reported, on August 7, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order (the “EO”) titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans” which, among other things, seeks to prohibit depository institutions and other companies from discriminating against potential and existing customers of any and all banking and other consumer financial services products and services (not just loans or extensions of credit) based on their political or religious beliefs or their conducting businesses as long as they are lawful.… Continue Reading

The FHFA has directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare proposals for consideration of cryptocurrency as an asset for reserves in their single-family risk assessments, without a conversion to dollars.

“Cryptocurrency is an emerging asset class that may offer an opportunity to build wealth outside of the stock and bond markets,” FHFA Director William J.… Continue Reading

On August 6, 2025, in Corner Post, Inc. v Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota (the “Court”) granted Corner Post’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the Federal Reserve Board (the “Board”) exceeded its authority in adopting Regulation II, which in part caps debit card interchange fees.… Continue Reading

If you are subject to enforcement by the FTC (excluding antitrust laws), you will not want to miss this webinar on September 9 at Noon, ET.  This, of course, includes non-bank fintechs.

 As has been the case in prior years, we are delighted to once again have as our guest speaker Malini Mithal, Associate Director of the FTC’s Division of Financial Practices.… Continue Reading

President Trump has issued an Executive Order directing banking agencies to adopt policies to ensure that financial institutions do not use reputational risk as a basis for restricting access to banking services—a process known as “debanking.”

“Individuals, their businesses, and their families have been subjected to debanking on the basis of their political affiliations, religious beliefs or lawful business activities, and have suffered frozen payrolls, debt and crushing interest, and other significant harms to their livelihoods, reputations, and financial well-being,” Trump said, in the order.… Continue Reading

Today’s episode of the Consumer Finance Monitor podcast offers an in-depth analysis of the unitary executive theory and its implications for terminations by President Trump of the Democratic members/commissioners of several so-called independent Federal agencies. The episode features Lev Menand, an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, who provides expert insights into financial institutions and administrative law and the validity of the Trump terminations.… Continue Reading