In this episode of Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso break down the FTC’s newly released 14-question FAQ guide on auto price advertising transparency, the follow-up to the agency’s “notorious 97” warning letters. They walk through what must be included in an advertised price (and what can be excluded); how document fees and state law requirements interact with FTC rules; the treatment of MSRP, discounts, and leasing processing fees; rules on advertising in-transit vehicles and using representative photos; and the thorny question of who bears responsibility for inaccurate pricing across dealers, third-party advertisers, and OEMs. They close with the FTC’s stance on compliance timing and its reliance on consumer and competitor complaints to enforce a level playing field.

In this special crossover episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast and Regulatory Oversight, Chris Willis, Stefanie Jackman, and Mike Yaghi discuss California Governor Gavin Newsom’s appointment of former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to lead the state’s newly created Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA).

In this special crossover episode of Regulatory Oversight and The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis, Stefanie Jackman, and Mike Yaghi discuss California Governor Gavin Newsom’s appointment of former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to lead the state’s newly created Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA).

In this episode of Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso break down a recent DOJ/U.S. Attorney’s Office settlement with a lease-here, pay-here dealership over violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). They discuss the two provisions at the heart of the case, repossession protections and lease termination rights, and the way a dealer’s failure to check military status and refund lease payments led to a $137,348 penalty and a robust, DOJ-approved compliance overhaul. Brooke and Chris explain why SCRA enforcement remains a bipartisan, well-funded priority (nearly $500 million recovered since 2011) and offer practical steps dealers and auto finance companies should take now, including mandatory DMDC database searches, documented military-orders intake procedures, thorough recordkeeping, and designated, trained SCRA points of contact. Tune in for a real-world roadmap of what regulators expect dealership compliance programs to look like.

In this crossover episode of Payments Pros and The Consumer Finance Podcast, Taylor Gess is joined by colleagues James Stevens and Sarah Hanna from Troutman Pepper Locke’s Corporate and Consumer Financial Services practices to discuss the surge of interest among fintech and point-of-sale finance companies in obtaining bank charters, acquiring existing banks, and forming bank partnerships. With the current administration signaling an open-for-business posture at the federal banking agencies, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) actively encouraging de novo applications, payment and fintech companies are weighing their options more seriously than they have in years. The conversation covers what is driving the spike in charter applications, including from companies in the crypto, lending, and payments spaces, and how specialty charters are factoring into that trend. James and Sarah also walk through the bank partnership landscape, where enforcement activity has cooled and focus has shifted, and explain how acquiring an existing bank charter compares to starting from scratch on timing, cost, and regulatory complexity. The episode closes with practical guidance for point-of-sale finance companies considering any of these three paths, including why building internal compliance infrastructure early, engaging regulators informally, and retaining regulatory counsel sooner rather than later can make or break a successful launch.

In this episode of Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso break down a recent $4 million settlement between the FTC and the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office against an auto dealership accused of deceptive pricing, unauthorized add-on charges, and phantom vehicle certifications. They discuss the significance of naming individual owners and managers as defendants, the growing coordination between federal and state regulators using UDAP authority to enforce what amounts to the “ghost” of the vacated FTC CARS Rule, and why junk fees, price transparency, and express informed consent remain top enforcement priorities regardless of administration. The hosts close with practical takeaways for dealers and finance companies on aligning advertising, add-on sales practices, and compliance monitoring to avoid similar exposure, including private litigation risk under state consumer protection statutes and the Holder Rule.

In this episode of the “Point-of-Sale Finance” series, Jason Cover is joined by colleagues Erin Edwards and Simon Fleischmann from Troutman Pepper Locke’s Consumer Financial Services practice to shift the lens from regulatory compliance to litigation risk. The conversation broadens the frame beyond Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) to the full point-of-sale credit ecosystem (Pay in 4 products, embedded installment loans, retail installment sales contracts, and private label retail cards), explaining why litigation risk turns less on how a product is marketed and more on what the consumer saw, what they were told, and what happened when something went wrong after checkout.