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CFPB Increases Focus on Business Lending In a recent appearance before Congress, Director Cordray noted that the CFPB has started engaging in supervisory activity regarding small business lending. |
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Congress Takes Further Aim at Negative Option Programs It’s no secret that automatic renewal (or continuity or negative option programs) are on many regulators hit lists. Regulators argue that consumers are often unaware that they have signed up for services or products for which they will be billed on a monthly basis unless and until they cancel, particularly when it involves a free trial period. In some cases cancellation may not always be easy and the billing descriptor that appears on the consumer’s credit card statement may differ significantly from the branded product or service name. Finally, otherwise busy consumers may simply forget about the upcoming renewal, particularly if the subscription term is lengthy. |
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Enterprise Risk Management in Community Banks: A Self-Help Guide Community banks have learned over the past decade to take steps to help themselves. Amid the economic crisis and resulting regulatory firestorm of Dodd-Frank, banks that survived did so through a combination of consolidation, creative business plans, and basic ingenuity. It is probably not an airtight strategy to rely on relief from Washington, which has not established a long history of reducing or even streamlining regulations. The message sent to community banks has been more and more regulation, and only recently has the new administration made regulatory relief a higher priority. |
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FTC Settles Major Prepaid Card Advertising Case and Doesn’t Say Much about It For those of us who are regular readers of FTC press releases, the allure of last week’s announcement that the FTC settled its lawsuit against prepaid card company NetSpend Corporation may be more in the substance – or lack thereof – of the announcement itself. In four sentences, the FTC simply stated that the advertiser agreed to settle, that the Commission vote approving the final order was 2-1, and that Acting Chairman Ohlhausen issued a dissenting statement. |
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House Financial Services Committee Hearing on "The 2016 Semi-Annual Reports of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection" The House Financial Services Committee held a regularly scheduled hearing on April 5, 2017, which was statutorily mandated to present the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) two most recent editions of its semiannual reports. The sole witness was CFPB Director Richard Cordray. During the contentious hearing, Republican members attacked the CFPB's constitutionality, leadership structure, transparency, and enforcement procedures, while the Democrat members of the committee defended CFPB Director Cordray. The hearing lasted nearly 6 hours, and each member of the committee had an opportunity to speak. Related Articles and Presentations Consumer Financial Services 2017 Outlook: Post-Inauguration Day Insights Administration Sides with PHH in En Banc Appeal as DOJ and PHH File Briefs Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Hot Topics in Consumer Lending |
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April 28, 2017: Consumer Financial Services Legal and Regulatory Update at the 2017 Financial Counseling Association of America (FCAA) Annual Conference May 3, 2017: Webinar - Consumer Finance Enforcement Activity in a New Administration May 9, 2017 - Individual and Executive Liability Panel at MBA's Legal Issues & Regulatory Compliance Conference 2017 May 24, 2017: Federal Legal and Legislative Update at the 2017 National Association of Consumer Credit Administrators (NACCA) 2017 Annual Meeting and Regulators Training Symposium June 7, 2017: What's Changing in the Regulatory Environment? Hear From Your Federal and State Regulators at COMPLY2017 – The RegTech and Compliance Conference. Join Venable and other leading professionals interested in compliance, education, marketing and RegTech solutions. Save $100 off your registration with the discount code VENABLEVIP. July 17, 2017: Regulatory Compliance in an Evolving Legal Landscape at the ACA International 2017 Convention and Expo | |
CFPB focuses on business lending, a self-help guide for community banks, and more in this issue of Consumer Financial Services Practice Digest
4 min