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It appears that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) controversial indirect auto initiative may be over.  Before the holidays, the CFPB issued a blog post setting forth its fair lending priorities for 2017.  It identified those priorities as Redlining, Mortgage and Student Loan Servicing, and Small Business Lending.  Not only was indirect auto lending not listed, but the CFPB appeared to go out of its way to indicate it was moving away from this issue.   Continue Reading Is the CFPB’s Indirect Auto Initiative Over?

New regulations under the federal Military Lending Act (“MLA”) that become effective next week will prohibit consumer loans to covered US Service members if those loans have a “military annual percentage rate” (“MAPR”) greater than 36 percent. The Defense Department’s regulations will impose that MAPR limit on additional types of consumer credit transactions (beyond just payday, vehicle title, and tax refund anticipation loans) to active duty members of the armed forces and their spouses/dependents. The regulations will also change how a lender may determine whether applicants are “covered borrowers” and modify the disclosures required for those borrowers.

The MLA’s enforcement provisions include criminal and civil liability for noncompliance and provide for a private right of action.

Read more about the new regulations in Mayer Brown’s Legal Update.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) marks its fifth birthday having made a substantial mark on the consumer financial services marketplace. To mark this event, we have compiled a retrospective of the CFPB’s first five years. The retrospective provides an overview of the CFPB’s actions in the realms of rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement. While it would be difficult to chronicle all of the CFPB’s activities over that period, the articles in the retrospective provide a snapshot of the rules the CFPB has written or proposed, the supervision program it has implemented, and the enforcement actions it has taken across the landscape of consumer financial services. Some of the articles appeared previously on this blog, others appeared as Mayer Brown Legal Updates, and many are new analyses or summaries of the CFPB’s actions.  Read the retrospective, available here.

 

It has been a busy June for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the auto lending space. On June 9, the CFPB released a “Know Before You Owe” shopping sheet for auto loans. On June 27, the CFPB published a report entitled “Consumer Voices on Automobile Financing” (the “Auto Financing Report”). This report contains information on consumers’ challenges in obtaining and understanding auto financing based on focus groups with consumers and narrative consumer complaints. On June 28, the CFPB released its monthly complaint snapshot highlighting consumers’ complaints on auto lending. In the midst of this, the CFPB also published a series of blog posts directed at consumers on how to shop for auto loans.

Although the majority of the CFPB’s documents and articles are focused on consumers, direct and indirect auto lenders can learn from the CFPB’s guidance. Before you drive away for the long weekend, here are some key highlights from the CFPB’s recent slew of auto financing information: Continue Reading Auto Lenders Take Note: Key Takeaways from the CFPB’s Recent Auto Financing Publications

*Mrs. Schoenfeld is not admitted in the District of Columbia. She is practicing under the supervision of firm principals

On April 29, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB” or “Bureau”) issued its fourth Fair Lending Report, which reviews the activities of the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity for the 2015 calendar year.  Last year, the CFPB’s fair lending supervisory and public enforcement actions led to $108 million in restitution to consumers and other monetary payments.  The Bureau referred eight matters to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), and DOJ declined to independently investigate two of these matters.

The Report focuses on the following fair lending highlights: Continue Reading The CFPB Issues its 2015 Fair Lending Report