Payday Lending

The last enforcement action filed in court by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the leadership of Richard Cordray has been resolved.

The bureau announced a settlement in its case against bankrupt debt collector Think Finance in which the companies who reportedly operated a $133 million online loan scheme will be forced to pay $7 in civil money penalties.

The CFPB announcement was made in conjunction with a bankruptcy settlement which is expected to create a fund of as much as $39 million in consumer redress. Read on for more details. Read on »

In its 2019 Fall Unified Agenda, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) moved the needle on some long-awaited rulemaking activities. Though some were, not all those moves were in a forward direction.

The bureau plans to issue two final rules in 2020 – one regulating the payday lending industry and the other providing certain exemptions to threshold limits connected to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements. The new agenda also added a pair of potentially impactful “long-term” rulemaking items.

Find out more details about the bureau’s foreseeable rulemaking plans.

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Research conducted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to measure the average American’s financial well-being revealed that more than half of adults would struggle to cover an unexpected expense of $2,000 or more.

The CFPB included state-by-state comparisons of financial well-being scores in a report detailing its findings, as well as a breakdown of financial well-being by age.

Learn more about what the report reveals about the majority of Americans.

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Legislation introduced in the House and Senate seeks to protect all consumers from high interest rates often associated with payday and car-title loans.

The Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act would extend the Military Lending Act’s 36 percent APR interest rate cap on both loan types to cover all Americans. 

Find out more details about the measure.

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A coalition of more than 100 Democratic congressional representatives wrote to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger, urging her to reconsider the bureau’s final rule delaying implementation of its 2017 payday lending rule.

The House members, led by Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), condemned the delay as a giveaway to payday lenders at the expense of consumers.

Find out more about what the legislators had to say.

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Four months after proposing to rescind and delay compliance with its 2017 payday lending rule’s mandatory underwriting provisions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealed a final rule amendment to add another year to the proposed delay.

Such delays align with advocacy by banks, credit unions and payday lenders, but have drawn the ire of consumer advocates and Democrats.

Find out more details about the delay and what feedback the bureau has received.

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The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is in the process of finalizing six rules and has just as many in the proposal stage in the agency’s Unified Agenda for Spring 2019.

Among the items noted in the agenda are the agency’s final rule on payday alternative loans (PALs) and an expected proposed rule regarding the interest rate cap on loans issued by federal credit unions (FCUs).

Find out what else was included in the agenda.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) first Unified Agenda released under Director Kathy Kraninger shows that the agency is planning to issue two long-awaited final rules in June and is moving forward with certain rulemaking activities suggested by former acting director Mick Mulvaney.

The bureau’s statutorily-required business lending data collection rulemaking, which has been pushed back multiple times, has been moved up in the latest agenda. Rulemaking to clarify the meaning of “abusive” as it relates to the bureau’s UDAAP authority has been added to the bureau’s “long-term” rulemaking agenda.

Learn more about what to expect from the bureau from the agenda.

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In her first statutorily required appearance before Congress as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Kathy Kraninger was asked to address the bureau’s plans pertaining to its enforcement of fair lending laws, its stance on ongoing litigation against companies, restitution for harmed consumers and its rules regulating payday lenders and overdraft services.

Questions from Democrats were reminiscent of previous challenges to Kraninger’s commitment to the bureau’s mission, and many pertained to changes enacted under former acting director Mick Mulvaney. Republicans decried Democrats for “badgering” Kraninger and defended her and Mulvaney. 

Find out more details about her testimony.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently published a compliance guide to help small entities account for the payment-related provisions of its payday lending rule. The guide does not address any of the rule’s ability-to-repay underwriting provisions, which the agency has proposed to rescind.

Specifically, the guide details what loans are and are not covered under the rule, how the rule applies to lenders and service providers, prohibited payment activities, consumer disclosure requirements, compliance disclosure requirements and recordkeeping requirements.

Find out more specifics about what the guide covers that could help lenders and service providers.

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