Coincidentally (or not), on the same day the CFPB launched its overdraft fee initiative, previously discussed, 250 national, state and community organizations and individual activists wrote the heads of the CFPB and the federal banking agencies to attack deposit advance products. Both the CFPB in its payday lending exam manual and the authors of this letter treat deposit advance loans as a kind of payday loan.… Continue Reading

Last week, Barbara Mishkin posted generally on the CFPB’s overdraft fee initiative. I found the CFPB’s prototype “penalty fee box” particularly interesting and have a few comments: 

  • While it is certainly possible that the CFPB will both require targeted disclosures and sharply circumscribe consumer choice, I take some hope from the penalty fee box disclosure that the CFPB will focus on requiring clear disclosure and continue to allow consumers a considerable measure of autonomy.
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Back in December, the Bureau issued a notice asking the public to help it “identify provisions of the inherited regulations that the Bureau should make the highest priority for updating, modifying, or eliminating because they are outdated, unduly burdensome, or unnecessary.” (We discussed the notice in an earlier blog post [link.… Continue Reading

The CFPB is conducting this week its final round of testing in its “Know Before You Owe” project. Instead of asking for comments on side-by-side comparisons of prototypes for the same disclosure, the CFPB is asking for comments on one prototype of a RESPA/TILA integrated application disclosure and one prototype of a RESPA/TILA integrated settlement disclosure.… Continue Reading

Since the CFPB was launched, we have been predicting that overdraft fees would be among the CFPB’s priority items. With the CFPB’s announcement today that it has launched an inquiry into checking account overdraft programs, it’s clear our predictions were correct. The CFPB’s focus on overdraft fees is proceeding on several different fronts and we will share more detailed comments on the CFPB’s initiatives in further blog posts.… Continue Reading

After suggesting six possible markets for consumer financial products and services in which it might supervise “larger participants,” the CFPB has decided that, at least for the time being, it will only supervise “larger participants” in two of those markets, namely debt collection and consumer credit reporting. 

In issuing its proposed “larger participants” rule, the CFPB gave no explanation for its decision to include just the two markets. … Continue Reading

This morning, the CFPB released a proposed rule to define “larger participants” subject to its supervision and enforcement authority.  We will write more about this proposed rule after we get the chance to review it, but from an initial review of the press release, there are several interesting aspects to the proposed rule:

  • Initially, the CFPB is seeking to cover only “large” consumer reporting agencies and debt collectors, with revenue thresholds of $7 million and $10 million, respectively, to define the covered entities.
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On February 6, Professor Jeff Sovern published a blog post in which he seems to be urging the CFPB to regulate rent-to-own (“RTO”) companies.  He quoted an article in the Huffington Post which, in turn quoted a CFPB spokeswoman as saying that the CFPB is reviewing the RTO industry and has not yet decided what action, if any, would be appropriate. … Continue Reading

The CFPB now wants comments on a prototype monthly mortgage statement.  The form already has been through one round of testing, and two more rounds are planned.

Despite industry opposition, the Dodd-Frank Act included a requirement for creditors, assignees or servicers of mortgage loans to provide periodic statements to borrowers containing specified information and directed the CFPB to develop a model form for the statements that takes into account the possibility of either written or electronic delivery.… Continue Reading

The CFPB has announced that it will be holding a town hall in New York City on February 22 “to talk about checking accounts.” While the notice contains no information about the issues to be discussed, we expect the focus will be on fees and disclosures. As we previously reported, the CFPB has been urged by Senate Democrats to require standardized disclosures for checking accounts.… Continue Reading