Enforcement of the Law, Quantitative Impact Analysis & Other Gems

Last week CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney had a busy speaking calendar in Washington, D.C. and we all should be listening. He addressed the Credit Union National Association (CUNA)’s Government Affairs Conference on Tuesday, February 27th and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Winter Meeting on Wednesday, February 28th. While there were differences in the two presentations because of the respective audiences, Mulvaney’s strategic themes were clear. You can watch the CUNA speech here and the NAAG speech here.

1. CFPB will reflect the current administration. Not surprisingly, the CFPB will be run differently under the Trump administration than it had been under the Obama administration. Whatever one’s politics, the Acting Director made abundantly clear that a new sheriff is in town. Mulvaney highlighted the time he has been spending with CFPB staff to share his priorities and to re-align departments and to focus activities under the new strategic constructs. He assured both CFPB staff and the two audiences that despite the strategy shift, he is not anticipating employee layoffs.

2. CFPB enforcement activity will enforce the law. A bit circular? Maybe. Nonsensical in light of past CFPB activity? No. Mulvaney emphasized that institutions should “know what the rules are” before being sued for allegedly failing to comply. In other words, the CFPB should not be challenging company activities which leaders did not reasonably understand violated applicable law. And related, CFPB should not push the envelope. Mulvaney rejected the notion that enforcement suits should be “creative” or that the CFPB should regulate by enforcement. Mulvaney will leave legislative tasks to the Congress. Waxing literary at CUNA, Mulvaney quoted Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America: “When justice is more certain and more mild, is at the same time more efficacious.” Mulvaney acknowledged the great power the CFPB has and opined that power should be wielded humbly and judiciously.

3. CFPB will quantitatively assess regulatory impacts. Mulvaney spoke to leveraging cost-benefit analysis at the Bureau. He will require quantitative benefits and burdens to be assessed before changes are made to regulatory requirements. He intends rule making with substantial accountability and transparency, including input from consumer groups, Attorneys General, and industry. Mulvaney hopes the CFPB will “hear” (not just listen) when engaging in these analyses, acknowledging previous criticism that the Bureau may have been “checking in the box” in that regard.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a brief press announcement that the Prepaid Card Rule would be further revised and that the effective date for compliance will be further postponed from the current deadline in April 2018.

The announcement creates more worry than relief – it’s just a tease. The announcement did not say what changes would be made or when the new deadline will be. It only said that amendments to “certain aspects” of the rule would be coming “soon after the new year.”  No doubt the Bureau meant for this announcement to be helpful to someone, but it is not clear if anyone is actually helped.

Prepaid card issuers are scrambling to implement the systems changes and new business processes necessary to support the sweeping changes required by the rule. With this announcement, they must now wonder which of those efforts will turn out to be wasted, or perhaps need to be re-worked, and they can’t pause pursuing any specific implementation efforts until the actual amendments are published. Are they supposed to trust that the extra time to be allowed by the CFPB will be sufficient to accommodate this pivot?

On July 10, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a rule prohibiting class action waivers in certain pre-dispute arbitration agreements. The rule drastically impacts arbitration clauses currently used by many financial products and services providers in their consumer agreements.

The rule has three main components. First, the rule prohibits providers from using a pre-dispute arbitration agreement to prevent consumers from bringing or participating in class actions in federal and state court. Second, the rule requires that arbitration agreements inform consumers that their right to bring a class action is unrestricted. Third, the rule requires providers to supply certain records and data relating to arbitral proceedings to the CFPB.

The rule is effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register and generally applies to agreements entered into more than 180 days after the effective date. Congress, however, can use the Congressional Review Act to prevent the rule from taking effect.

What is the effect of the rule?

The new rule prohibits pre-dispute arbitration agreements for certain consumer financial products or services that block consumer class actions in federal and state courts. The rule accomplishes this in two ways:

1. providers cannot rely on any pre-dispute arbitration agreement entered after the compliance date that restricts or eliminates a consumer’s right to a class action in state or federal court (§ 1040.4(a)(1)); and
2. providers must include certain specified plain language in arbitration agreements that explicitly disclaims the arbitration agreements applicability to class actions (§ 1040.4(a)(2)).

The rule also requires providers to submit certain records relating to arbitral proceedings to the bureau, including copies of pleadings, the pre-dispute arbitration agreement, and the judgment. (§ 1040(b).)

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On the latest episode of The Bank Account, Jonathan and I discuss the CFPB’s request for comments regarding information about the small business lending market.

Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to require financial institutions to compile, maintain and report information concerning credit applications made by women-owned, minority-owned and small businesses.  In connection with this obligation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now seeking comments to identify, among other things, how to define small business lending, what business lending data is currently easily available, and what kinds of institutions should be obligated to make such reports.

Jonathan and I discuss the need for the depository industry to provide comments in response to this request.

CFPB watchers know that since 2013 customer complaints have been solicited and complaint data has been made available on the CFPB website. January is ubiquitous with New Year’s resolutions (perhaps you’ve already broken all of yours, but hopefully not). It is a great time to review the 2016 customer complaint data and see what the Plaintiffs’ Bar sees about your customers and your institution.

Undoubtedly, in due course, the CFPB has contacted your compliance and legal teams directly about these consumer complaints on an individualized basis. And undoubtedly, you have investigated the issue and provided responsive information to the CFPB and the consumer. Hopefully, each individual customer complaint matter is resolved and closed.

As a class action litigator, however, it is important to highlight that there is more here than just each individual complaint. We are living in an age of big data. The CFPB knows it. Your institution knows it. And, guess what, the Plaintiffs’ Bar knows it. The individual complaints posted to the CFPB database may be only the tip of the iceberg, or the issues may not have been fully resolved.

The CFPB recently issued its newest edition of Supervisory Highlights Mortgage Serving Special Edition, Issue 11 (June 2016).

From a litigator’s perspective, the Supervisory Highlights do more than summarize recent supervisory findings, they also shine a light on future examination and putative class action risks that are emerging. The CFPB is providing key insights into what it believes should be industry standards. Banks and mortgage servicers should read carefully both the specific findings summarized and slightly more subtle clues to evolving future CFPB requirements.  Here are three takeaways on the Highlights from a financial services class action litigator’s perspective:

1. ECOA & Special Servicing Populations Continue to be a Strong CFPB focus.

In section 2, “Our approach to mortgage servicing examinations,” the CFPB uses a fair amount of real estate to highlight ECOA requirements. In fact, the report states clearly “…Supervision will be conducting more comprehensive ECOA Targeted Reviews of mortgage servicers in 2016.” (See Supervisory Highlights, p.5).  The report specifically indicates that the ECOA Baseline Modules in the CFPB Supervision and Examination Manual will be a tool used by CFPB examination teams. Banks and servicers would do well, if you are not already, to consider the modules and how your data may be viewed. The CFPB specifically flags Module IV fair lending risks related to servicing including staff training, monitoring and “servicing those customers with Limited English Proficiency.” (See Supervisory Highlights, p.5, and ECOA Examination Modules). Among the module’s areas of inquiry are: whether personnel who are available for limited English speaking customers receive the same training and have the same authority as do other personnel, and the level(s) of discretion that servicing personnel may have in making loss mitigation decisions and referrals for customers with limited English (including controls to monitor such discretion usage).  The Highlights appear to signal that the CFPB will increase focus on these areas in the coming months. Banks and servicers may wish to re-evaluate their progress and operations capabilities in these areas. As always, the plaintiff’s consumer bar may be watching CFPB pronouncements and enforcement, and may initiate consumer class action(s) asserting such claims.

On June 2, 2016, the CFPB released its long-awaited proposed regulations for payday loans, vehicle title and certain high-cost installment loans.  Comments on the proposed rules must be received on or before September 14, 2016.

While most payday lenders would need to make significant changes to their products and practices under the proposed rules, the final rules could well be delayed though legal challenges in court.  The scope of the proposal is extraordinary, even requiring a new credit reporting system, that would need to be built, to facilitate the ability-to-repay requirements of the proposal.  The CFPB is relying on its authority under the Dodd-Frank UDAAP provisions to issue the rules, which is admittedly very broad, but even that might not be enough to support this ambitious proposal.

Nevertheless, because we cannot predict how courts would ultimately rule on the CFPB’s authority, it’s important to understand the proposed rules, prepare comments, and consider what business model changes might be needed.   This article therefore summarizes the key provisions of the proposal.

On October 30, 2015, the Department of Education issued regulations to impose requirements on the marketing and terms of deposit and prepaid accounts offered to students at educational institutions that participate in Federal student aid programs. According to the DOE, the regulations are intended to ensure that students have convenient access to their title IV, Higher Education Act program funds, do not incur unreasonable and uncommon account fees on their title IV funds, and are not led to believe that they must open a particular financial account to receive Federal student aid. Most of these new rules take effect on July 1, 2016.

On December 16, the CFPB published a Safe Student Account Toolkit “to help colleges evaluate whether to co-sponsor a prepaid or checking account with a financial institution.” The Toolkit includes a Scorecard that can be used by schools when selecting a third-party vendor for student accounts and an Administrator Handbook designed to help school administrators gather relevant information to review, compare and evaluate accounts offered by different financial institutions.

The CFPB’s Toolkit provides guidance on the new DOE regulations, but with a focus on those provisions that are designed to protect students. The CFPB can bring and has brought enforcement actions against colleges under federal consumer protection laws. Their issuing of the Toolkit should be understood as a warning that they also will be enforcing the consumer protection portions of the DOE rules, though perhaps under their unfair, deceptive and abusive practices statute.

On November 23, 2015, the CFPB issued a Bulletin alerting companies that they must obtain proper authorization from consumers before automatically debiting their accounts. The Bulletin relates to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act requirements for “preauthorized electronic fund transfers,” which are EFTs scheduled in advance to recur at substantially regular intervals. The preauthorized EFTs in the CFPB’s spotlight are those that debit a consumer’s account.

Regulation E of the EFTA provides that preauthorized EFTs from a consumer’s account must be authorized by a “writing signed or similarly authenticated by the consumer.” The authorization must be readily identifiable as such and have clear terms, and the person obtaining that authorization must provide a copy to the consumer. It’s important to keep in mind that these are two separate requirements. The Bulletin clarifies how a company can obtain the consumer’s authorization, and describes the critical elements of that authorization, but leaves unanswered certain questions about delivering a copy of the authorization to the consumer when it is obtained by telephone.

Content of the Authorization

As noted above, the consumer’s authorization must be readily identifiable as such and must have clear terms. The Bulletin states that companies sometimes provide consumers with notices of terms for preauthorized EFTs that fail to disclose “critical information.” The CFPB explains that the authorization must be clear as to the recurring nature of the transfers and the amount and timing of the payments agreed to. Of course the authorization also needs to identify the consumer and the account to be charged. Regardless of how the consumer’s authorization is obtained, which is discussed below, all of this information needs to be in the authorization and in the copy provided to the consumer.

Invoking memories of Apple’s famed 1984 Superbowl commercial, a group called the American Action Network aired an anti-CFPB spot during last night’s Republican presidential debate. If nothing else, the spot should encourage further discussion of the role and impact of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The spot certainly portrays the CFPB in an evil light that is sure to please many in the banking industry, but its broader impact is less certain. A well-written piece by the American Banker offers several reasons why the ad could backfire, not the least of which is the hyperbolic nature of (and shortcuts taken by) the spot.

And former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair seems to agree.

@ABWashBureau Not smart. This will solidify CFPB supporters and imply GOP is anti-consumer, which it isn't.

— Sheila Bair (@SheilaBair2013) November 10, 2015