Alleging that a Boston company “pervasively and systematically violated the state’s consumer protection laws, including mortgage and foreclosure prevention laws, putting financially vulnerable homeowners at high risk of losing their homes,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has filed suit against the firm and its holding company. 

The AG alleged that Hometap Equity Partners LLC–and HomeTap Management Systems, LLC–engaged in illegal and predatory practices targeted for financially vulnerable homeowners, according to the suit filed in Suffolk County Superior Court.… Continue Reading

Legislation that would eliminate all funding for the CFPB has been introduced in the House and Senate, with the main House sponsor now calling for the bill to be placed on a fast track by including it in budget reconciliation.

Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, has introduced H.R. 814 and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas has introduced S.… Continue Reading

Our podcast show today features Jason Mikula, publisher of Fintech Business Weekly; a newsletter going beyond the headlines to analyze the technology, regulatory and business model trends, driving the rapidly evolving financial services ecosystem at the intersection of traditional banking, payments, FinTech and crypto. We discuss his recently released book, titled “Banking as a Service: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks of New Banking Business Models” (Kogan Page 2024).… Continue Reading

Chief Judge Virginia Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois has extended her preliminary injunction prohibiting Illinois from enforcing the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (the “IFPA”) to cover out-of-state banks conducting business in the state.

Judge Kendall already had ruled that Illinois could not enforce the IFPA on nationally chartered banks and federal savings associations but requested additional briefing with respect to federal credit unions and out-of-state banks.… Continue Reading

A federal judge has issued an order temporarily prohibiting the Trump Administration from imposing mass layoffs and budget cuts at the CFPB.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia has scheduled a March 3 hearing in the suit filed by the National Treasury Employees Union, the National Consumer Law Center, the NAACP, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Pastor Eva Steege and the CFPB Employee Association.… Continue Reading

Accusing the CFPB of planning to use its funding mechanism to abolish the agency, the mayor and the city council of Baltimore (the “City of Baltimore”) and the Economic Action Maryland Fund (the “Economic Fund”), a nonprofit economic assistance organization, are asking a federal judge to keep the bureau from folding.… Continue Reading

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the FCC rule that would have prohibited telemarketing or advertising robocalls to consumers unless they consent to calls from only one entity at a time, and that they consent only to calls whose subject matter is associated with the interaction that prompted the consent.… Continue Reading

In this episode of the Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast, Ballard Spahr partners Mike Kilgarriff and Joseph Schuster break down the seismic shifts in consumer financial regulation following the dramatic changes at the CFPB. With the Bureau’s enforcement and supervisory activities on hold, state attorneys general are stepping in to fill the regulatory void.… Continue Reading

More than 185 Democrats in the House and Senate are urging Trump Administration officials to restore the enforcement and supervisory powers of the CFPB.

“The Trump Administration has effectively fired the financial cop on the beat and declared open season for predatory lenders and scam artists working to steal Americans’ money and threaten their financial security,” the Democrats wrote, in a joint letter to Russell Vought, acting director of the CFPB and director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who served as acting director of the bureau for a short period of time.… Continue Reading

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a stay that blocks for many financial institutions the implementation of a CFPB rule that requires the institutions to report information contained in loan applications submitted by women-owned, minority-owned and LGBTQI+-owned small businesses.

However, the stay only applies to plaintiffs and intervenors in the case.… Continue Reading