“For the rest of this year and the next, our rulemaking agenda at the Consumer Bureau will remain quite active.” Director Richard Cordray recently stated. So what can we expect to see from the CFPB? The agency is working on new or revised rules for:
- Overdraft fees, including the opt-in process for overdraft coverage of electronic transactions;
- Collection and publication of data on small business lending (The Dodd-Frank Act required final rules by July 21, 2011. While we are in no hurry to see these rules, it appears that the CFPB will miss the mandated deadline by approximately six years. That must be some kind of record.);
- Debt collection practices, likely resulting in more direct applicability to collect of own debt;
- Consumer protections for prepaid accounts;
- Small-dollar loans such as payday loans, car title loans, and certain installment loans;
- Arbitration clauses in consumer finance contracts;
- Credit reporting, in addition to the enhancements from the FACT Act that were implemented from 2003 to 2011;
- Enhanced checking account access.
Also in the works is the FIG (Filing Instructions Guide), that completes the revised HMDA rules that are effective, in large part, on January 1, 2018.