In October 2017 the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (‘CFPB’) published a set of consumer protection principles, the ‘Consumer Protection Principles: Consumer-Authorized Financial Data Sharing and Aggregation.’ The Principles have been released in the context of a market in which companies, including many FinTech companies, access consumers’ account data, with consumer consent, and then provide services to consumers which utilise data from consumer accounts, for example to provide services such as account and transaction verification. The Principles aim to work towards the CFPB’s vision for a “robust, safe, and workable data aggregation market that gives consumers protection, usefulness, and value.” Barrie VanBrackle, Partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, analyses each of the CFPB’s Principles and considers what the stakeholders have to say about them. / read more

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (‘CFPB’ or ‘Bureau’) issued in 2016 its Prepaid Rule (the ‘Rule’). It is now proposing to make amendments to cover issues that have arisen as industry attempts to implement the Rule; these include amendments on limited liability requirements and pre-acquisition disclosure requirements. Linda C. Odom and Jeremy McLaughlin of K&L Gates discuss the proposed amendments to the Rule and the implications. / read more

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (‘CFPB’) issued on 5 October 2016 its final rule on prepaid cards (‘Final Rule’), which aims to ensure transparency around card terms and fees and ensure that consumer funds on prepaid cards are safe. The Final Rule represents an expansion of the definition of ‘prepaid cards’ when compared with the CFPB’s 2012 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the matter. Barrie VanBrackle, Partner at Orrick LLP, discusses key aspects of the Final Rule and the CFPB’s definitions, and gauges early industry reaction. / read more

The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (‘CFPB’) released in April 2016 its CFPB Report: Online Payday Loan Payments (‘Report’), which looked at online payday lending. This Report is based on the CFPB’s analysis of the bank account data of online payday loan borrowers and comes to the conclusion that the borrowers incur significant insufficient funds fees and bank account closures. However, H. Blake Sims, Partner at Hudson Cook LLP, has a number of concerns about the Report, particularly in regards to the CFPB’s ‘data-driven analysis,’ as he explains in this article. / read more