Current Industry News
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/10/10/governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-fight-predatory-lending-in-california/
SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom today signed into law a measure protecting consumers from predatory lending practices that create “debt traps” for families already struggling financially. AB 539 by Assemblymember Monique Limόn (D-Santa Barbara) promotes affordable and accessible credit for consumers and encourages responsible lenders to offer safer loan alternatives. The bill bars payday lenders from charging high interest rates – sometimes as high as 200 percent – on loans between $2,500 and $10,000.
CFPB Announces Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) today announced that it will establish a taskforce to examine ways to harmonize and modernize federal consumer financial laws. The Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and financial services providers and report to Director Kraninger its recommendations for ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations. The taskforce will produce new research and legal analysis of consumer financial laws in the United States, focusing specifically on harmonizing, modernizing, and updating the enumerated consumer credit laws—and their implementing regulations—and identifying gaps in knowledge that should be addressed through research, ways to improve consumer understanding of markets and products, and potential conflicts or inconsistencies in existing regulations and guidance.
CFPB issues final HMDA rule
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its final rule for the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which could lessen the burden for some smaller lenders. Under the new rule, the current temporary threshold for collecting and reporting data about open-end lines of credit under HMDA will be extended for two years until January 1, 2022. The current temporary threshold is 500 open-ended lines of credit. For data collection years 2020 and 2021, financial institutions that originated fewer than 500 open-end lines of credit in either of the two preceding calendar years will not need to collect and report data with respect to open-end lines of credit.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Issues Final HMDA Rule to Provide Relief to Smaller Institutions
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) today issued a rule which finalizes certain aspects of its May 2019 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). It extends for two years the current temporary threshold for collecting and reporting data about open-end lines of credit under HMDA. The rule also clarifies partial exemptions from certain HMDA requirements which Congress added in the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (EGRRCPA).