Justice Muse

Two times a year, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs issues a unified agenda showing planned rulemaking activity from various federal regulators. The most recent Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions was published on January 5, 2023 and provides a look ahead to what various agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), will be working on in the coming months.

Today, the CFPB announced that it ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 Billion related to allegations of widespread mismanagement of auto loans, mortgages and deposit accounts.  Whispers about this penalty broke in the news weeks ago, but the CFPB’s order involving the penalty and redress amounts was publicly announced today. 

Wells Fargo seems to be in the hot seat again with regulators. Repeated regulatory action like this in any industry should signal that there is a lack of an effective comprehensive compliance program. The key word here is effective. Every financial institution has a written compliance program. But, this should serve as a cautionary tale about identifying consistent themes about the effectiveness of one's processes and procedures.

These are interesting developments in the CFPB rulemaking space. The proposed rule will undoubtedly have serious implications on financial institutions. Banks will need to consider how to further safeguard the information shared and how to ensure the accuracy of that data. This rule will expose banks and other financial institutions to a fair amount of risk and it will be interesting to see how these institutions negate and navigate that risk.

Today, the CFPB published an advisory opinion noting its interpretation of Section 808(1) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the "FDCPA") as it relates to pay-to-pay fees charged by debt collectors. In short, CFPB opined that the FDCPA prohibits debt collectors from collecting pay-to-pay or “convenience” fees when those fees are not expressly authorized by the agreement creating the debt or expressly authorized by law. This opinion further underscores the CFPB's focus on add-on fees and the real-life impact that these fees have on American consumers.