On April 13, 2015, a bipartisan group of 34 members of the United States House of Representatives introduced a bill that would repeal a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) bulletin from 2013 challenging a common practice in the indirect auto finance industry where automobile dealers would set interest rates on consumer financings.
The bill, entitled
The CFPB continues to crack down on deceptive conduct by mortgage lenders, as evidenced by a recent action against California-based RMK Financial Corporation. According to an April 8, 2015 consent order issued by Richard Cordray, Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, RMK Financial sent print mailers to more than 100,000 consumers, falsely implying that
On April 23, the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New York Attorney General announced they will host a “dialogue” to discuss consumer protection issues with the debt collection industry, including recent enforcement actions, consumer complaints about debt collection practices, and compliance issues.
The first “Debt Collection Dialogue” in Buffalo, New York will
On April 22, the House of Representatives passed a bill requiring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to solicit input from several advisory boards and to cap the CFPB’s future funding.
H.R. 1195, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Advisory Boards Act, was adopted in a 235-183 vote, after a House committee earlier adopted
On April 9, PayPal Holdings Inc. (“PayPal”) issued a regulatory filing indicating that it may soon face a lawsuit from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB is targeting the activities of PayPal’s payments service, which lets consumers buy products before paying for them. In August 2014 and January 2015, the CFPB requested
On April 17, Tom Pahl, managing regulatory counsel for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Office of Regulations, spoke at ACA International’s Washington Insights Conference about the CFPB’s debt collection rulemaking. According to Pahl, the CFPB currently is focusing on four debt collection related topics for its proposed rulemaking:
On April 15, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule suspending for one year the requirement under the Truth in Lending Act and implemented by Regulation Z that credit card issuers submit their card agreements to the CFPB on a quarterly basis. The CFPB publishes the agreements to a public database on its
On April 6, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its next Community Bank Advisory Council meeting, which will be held at 3:00 p.m. EDT on April 22 in the CFPB’s offices at 1275 First Street, N.E., in Washington, D.C. The meeting will focus on credit scores and consumer reporting as well as implications for small
As part of its “Know Before You Owe” mortgage initiative, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a guide to assist consumers through the process of shopping for a mortgage and buying a house. The Toolkit is designed to help consumers take advantage of the new Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure forms that lenders are required
On March 9, a regulatory milestone occurred. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray presided over oral arguments in the first ever appeal of a CFPB administrative enforcement action. As this blog reported on December 31, 2014, this appeal concerns the first “recommended decision” issued by an Administrative Law Judge in a contested CFPB enforcement