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On January 4, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued its 2022 Fall Rulemaking Agenda containing pre-rule, proposed rule, and final rules under consideration. The CFPB releases regulatory agendas twice a year in voluntary conjunction with a broader initiative led by the Office of Budget and Management to publish a Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory actions across the federal government. In the preamble to the Federal Register notice, the CFPB states that the information is current as of September 30, 2022 and identifies regulatory matters the CFPB “reasonably anticipates” having under consideration during the period from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023. The CFPB has not yet posted a blog or issued a press release about the agenda.

On January 3, The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the Agencies) issued a joint statement to banking organizations highlighting a number of risks associated with crypto-assets.

While the Agencies expressly state that “banking organizations are neither prohibited nor…

Is an arbitration provision enforceable if it is added to a bank’s deposit account agreement four years after the account is opened and contains no meaningful opt-out clause? According to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the answer to that question is no. A copy of the court’s decision…

On December 6, during the 2022 Interagency Fair Lending Webinar, David Evans, a senior fair lending specialist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), discussed some of the specific discrimination issues identified during FDIC examinations that were ultimately referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) as potential fair lending violations. One area highlighted in the…

On November 14, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Senior Deputy Comptroller for Bank Supervision Policy Grovetta Gardineer delivered keynote remarks at the 2022 CRA & Fair Lending Colloquium where she discussed the OCC’s commitment to “elevating fairness” and ongoing efforts to ensure its regulated institutions comply with the federal fair lending laws.

The Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program is on hold indefinitely after a Texas federal court issued its decision, finding the program to be unconstitutional. In Brown v. U.S. Department of Education, the Northern District of Texas held that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) does not…

In Hanrahan v. Statewide Collection, Inc., No. 21-16187 (9th Cir. Sep. 1, 2022), the Ninth Circuit affirmed an award of attorneys’ fees in favor of the plaintiff in an action brought under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA). The case makes clear that, although the amount is discretionary, attorney fee awards to prevailing…

In an October 27 letter, the American Bankers Association (ABA) expressed concern regarding a proposal currently being considered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would shift liability from consumers to banks for scams involving peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. This would include requiring banks to reimburse consumers for P2P payments made but later identified…

As part of its ongoing initiative to scrutinize so-called “junk fees,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published guidance on two practices that it opines potentially violate the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s prohibition on unfair practices. Specifically, the CFPB published a compliance bulletin, cautioning against charging across-the-board depositor fees to consumers who deposit a…