All CFPB articles – Page 11
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Blog
Legislation Could Limit CFPB's Purview of Auto Lending
Before breaking for August recess, the House Financial Services Committee delivered a potential blow to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s oversight of non-bank lenders. The bill, "Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act of 2015," advanced with a bipartisan vote of 47-10, would repeal a CFPB bulletin from 2013 ...
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Article
Four Years On, Firms Still Struggle With CFPB Compliance
What have we learned in the four years the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been on the beat? For starters, it’s aggressive, returning $10 billion so far to consumers through enforcement actions. A solid understanding of the CFPB’s compliance program expectations remains elusive, and the mood among firms in the ...
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Blog
Appellate Court Allows Constitutional Challenge to CFPB
A small Texas bank scored a potentially big victory last week when a federal appeals court ruled that it has standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The decision, overturning a 2013 district court ruling, rejected a similar challenge to the Financial Stability Oversight Council and ...
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Article
CFPB’s ‘UDAAP’ Approach Is an Ambiguous Compliance Concern
Image: “Unfair and deceptive practices” have long been an enforcement area for consumer protection. Now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is adding an A for “abusive”—and taking away clarity for financial firms about what its UDAAP standard exactly means. “There is no list of clear black-and-white rules, and that’s what ...
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Blog
CFPB Makes Narratives in Complaint Database Public
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has made the consumer narratives collected by its controversial complaint database publicly available. In March, the CFPB formalized its policy for accepting and disclosing the complaint narratives. Last week, more than 7,700 of those complaints—lodged against banks, credit card companies, and other consumer-dealing financial ...
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Article
ITT Complaint Shows Off-Balance-Sheet Woes Aren’t Off-Stage Yet
An SEC lawsuit against ITT Educational Services could shape up to be another textbook case of what goes wrong when companies try to deal with problematic accounting away from the eye of investors. The problem this time: off-balance sheet vehicles that masked ITT’s defaulting student loans. Where were the auditors? ...
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Blog
House Vote Demands More Transparency from CFPB
The House of Representatives, with a 401-2 vote, has approved legislation that requires the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to comply with Federal Advisory Committee Act transparency requirements. The Federal Reserve, CIA, and CFPB are among the agencies not covered by the law. More inside.
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Blog
CFPB Goes Public With Complaint Database Narratives
If you were already alarmed by the reputational headaches and compliance challenges inherent in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s complaint database, there is now even more to worry about. The Bureau is making the narratives behind those complaints public.
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Blog
Risk Retention Rule Finalized for Asset-Backed Securities
Bank regulators, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have jointly issued a final rule that imposes credit risk retention requirements on sponsors of asset-backed securities. The rule requires sponsors to hold at least 5 percent of the ...
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Blog
CFPB Sues Sprint Over Third-Party Charges
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has filed a lawsuit against Sprint, alleging that the wireless communications provider illegally billed its customers tens of millions of dollars in unauthorized third-party charges. The Bureau’s complaint alleges that Sprint allowed third parties to “cram” unauthorized charges on customers’ mobile-phone accounts and ignored ...
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Article
CFPB Proposes New Rules for Prepaid Cards, Mobile Payments
Banks, retailers, online services, and others that issue prepaid cards to consumers will soon have some new rules to follow, including the need to conduct “ability to repay” assessments if they offer credit options. The rules, proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, could also bring new regulations to mobile ...
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Article
A New Congress Will Bring New Chances to Alter Regulatory Landscape
The midterm elections brought a much stronger position in Congress to Republicans. While it may not be enough to give them the clout they need to make vast legislative changes, it has given them hold on the purse strings. With control of the budgeting process, and a potential new willingness ...
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Blog
Federal Regulators Probing Subprime Auto Loans
Ally Financial recently became the latest auto-lending company to face a government investigation into its subprime auto lending practices. In the last few months, GM Financial and Santander Consumer USA Holdings have received subpoenas from the Department of Justice for similar practices, raising questions among some as to whether the ...
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Article
CFPB Offers No-Action Letters With Strings Attached
Image: Title: LampeFinancial firms worried about an enforcement action from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may soon get a reprieve. The agency has proposed a no-action letter policy that would let financial firms test the regulatory waters before they roll out new financial products. The application process, however, requires much ...
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Article
As Tech Firms Enter the Payments Space, Regulators Are Watching
Last month Apple plunged into the world of payment processing with its Apple Pay service that allows its mobile devices to make payments at retailers. Rivals Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have already dabbled in the market that includes Pay Pal and several others. These disruptive technologies may prompt regulators to ...