Welcome to the first issue of the Digital Assets + Blockchain Newsletter. In this newsletter, we’ll track the regulatory, legislative, and enforcement developments reshaping the crypto and digital assets landscape — from the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin framework to the SEC’s and CFTC’s evolving posture on digital commodities to custody rules, licensing regimes, and beyond.
On September 16, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released a new supervisory resource designed to help state examiners assess the use and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) at state-chartered banks and state-licensed nonbank financial institutions. The publicly available framework also gives regulated institutions insight into examiners’ general approach, the types of questions they may ask, and the information they may request regarding an institution’s AI-based products, services, and tools.
On September 16, the New York Attorney General’s Office (OAG) announced a settlement with two Westchester County dealerships, resolving allegations of deceptive fee practices under General Business Law § 349 and § 350 and Executive Law § 63(12). The resolution requires more than $1 million in immediate consumer restitution, with additional claims-based payments potentially reaching into the millions, plus $700,000 in penalties. For dealers and finance professionals, the underlying findings are worth attention; the settlement is an illustration of how regulators are analyzing fee disclosure and add-on sales in current enforcement actions.
This article republished on insideARM on September 23, 2026.
If you needed a reminder that state attorneys general are treating unlicensed debt collection as a serious enforcement priority, Massachusetts just delivered one. On August 31, the Suffolk Superior Court entered a Final Judgment by Consent resolving the Massachusetts Attorney General’s long-running case against several debt buyers and their owner. Under the terms of the order, the defendants must pay roughly $52 million in debt relief for more than 6,000 Massachusetts consumers, and permanently cease all debt buying, selling, and collection activities involving Massachusetts consumers.
On September 15, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff published a detailed FAQ on price transparency in auto advertising, and it’s worth a close read no matter which side of the deal you sit on: sales, Finance & Insurance (F&I), or compliance.
On September 8, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-03, outlining how it will enforce the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act’s (MHPAEA) nonquantitative treatment limitation (NQTL) requirements going forward. The bulletin follows through on EBSA’s January 2026 announcement identifying mental health/substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefit barriers as a national enforcement priority, and responds to sustained industry complaints that prior NQTL enforcement and comparative analyses requirements created confusion and unnecessary compliance burdens.
On September 9, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) (FCC-CIRC 2609-05) substantially revising the consent-revocation rules that were set to take effect January 31, 2027 under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The new rules take effect just 30 days after Federal Register publication, superseding that delayed date entirely, so businesses have far less runway than expected.
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.
In this episode of Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso break down California’s CARS Act, set to take effect October 1. They trace the law’s roots back to the FTC’s now-overturned CARS Rule, walk through its four core compliance pillars (misrepresentations, total price disclosures, valueless add-ons, and recordkeeping), and dig into the new three-day right to cancel for used vehicles. The hosts also cover enforcement risk under California’s UCL and CLRA, the exposure lenders face through the Holder Rule, and five practical steps dealers and their partners should be taking right now to get ahead of the law’s arrival.
As we reported in December 2025, New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights (DCR) adopted what its Attorney General described as the “most comprehensive state-level disparate impact regulations in the country” under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD). Those rules, effective December 15, 2025, codify a broad burden-shifting framework for disparate impact claims across housing, lending, employment, public accommodations, and contracting, and include specific guidance on liability arising from the use of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making tools. Now, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has filed suit to stop them.