The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued its final regulation (Rule) limiting the use of mandatory pre-dispute arbitration by providers of covered consumer financial products and services. The Rule will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register (which should occur in the next few days) and will apply to transactions commencing six months after the effective date (roughly April 2018).

On June 22, senior officials from the three primary federal bank regulatory agencies—the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board (Board), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (Committee) on, among other things, financial services reform matters.

One of President Donald Trump’s early official acts in February 2017 was to sign an executive order stating a series of “Core Principles” for the regulation of the US financial system and directing the secretary of the Treasury to report, in consultation with the members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, on the extent to which existing laws, regulations, and other regulatory requirements promote the Core Principles.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released FAQs to supplement its 2013 guidance on risk management of third-party relationships. The FAQs specifically address bank relationships with fintech companies and marketplace lenders, relationships that were not necessarily an OCC focus when the 2013 guidance was issued.

After a relatively quiet May on the financial regulatory front, an item from an atypical source caught our attention.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it has filed suit against four online lenders owned by the federally recognized Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Indian Tribe based on alleged violations of state licensing and usury laws.

As we reported last fall, New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo stated that she was “ardently opposed” to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) intention to process applications for a new financial technology (fintech) company charter. We now see just how much her counterparts in other states share that view, as the state bank regulators recently came together under the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) banner to ask the federal courts to stop the OCC’s fintech charter initiative. 

After signaling earlier this year that it was considering delaying the effective date of the Prepaid Accounts under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (Regulation E) and the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z) final rule (Prepaid Accounts Rule), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has officially delayed the effective date of the Prepaid Accounts Rule for six months to April 1, 2018.

In a concise panel ruling (CFPB vs. Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) that no doubt stings for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has held that the CFPB failed to provide adequate notice of the purpose of a civil investigative demand (CID) it issued to an accrediting group for for-profit colleges, and has accordingly declined to enforce the CID.

Determined to push forward with its Dodd-Frank Act reform legislation agenda, on April 11 the US House Financial Services Committee (Committee) released a summary of changes that it intends to make to the Financial CHOICE Act (CHOICE Act)—Dodd-Frank Act reform legislation that was introduced in the House of Representatives last fall but was not enacted before the end of the 114th Congress.