The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published on June 21 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Spring 2022 regulatory agenda, and surprisingly, only five rules have been included in the list, despite the CFPB’s crowded policy agenda.
The most notorious proposal, still in the pre-rule state, is the Dodd-Frank Act Section 1033: Rulemaking to Require Consumer Access to Financial Records. This rule would implement the Dodd-Frank’s requirements that the CFPB issue rules to require covered persons to provide consumers with access to their financial data.
It would be the first step to regulate open banking in the U.S. This authorization for consumers to access their data would mean that third-party payment providers could access, with the consumer’s consent, the user’s bank account data.
The CFPB plans to issue a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) outline for this rule in November. This is a legal prerequisite before issuing a notice for rulemaking. If the agency complies with this estimated timeline, any proposed rulemaking could slip into early 2023.
Other rules included in the list are the Interagency Rulemaking on Automated Valuation Models (AVMs), which would require AVMs to meet four statutory control standards, and the PACE Ability to Repay Rule, which would require the CFPB to prescribe specific ability-to-repay requirements for PACE financing.
The CFPB is also considering Rulemaking to amend the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which would require financial institutions to collect and report data on small business lending, including the race, ethnicity, and sex of the principal owners of the business, and the FCRA Prohibition on Inclusion of Adverse Information in Consumer Reporting in Cases of Human Trafficking, which would prohibit consumer reporting agencies from furnishing a consumer report containing any adverse item in case of human trafficking.
Interestingly, the list doesn’t address issues the agency has been long advocating for, even the ones that CFPB Director Rohit Chopra defended before Congress, like credit card fees, “junk fees” or buy now pay later (BNPL).
Just a few days before the regulatory agenda was published, Chopra published in the bureau’s blog his view about the approach to regulations.
In his post, Chopra mentioned three areas that are now included in the rulemaking list: open banking, transparency in the small business lending marketplace and quality control standards for automated valuation models. Yet, he also noted several rulemaking initiatives that included reviewing some long-standing rules, such as the Credit CARD Act of 2009, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the CFPB’s Qualified Mortgage Rules, that are not part of the 2022 regulatory agenda.
See also: It’s Official. CARD Act, Credit Rules, Now Under CFPB Review
According to Chopra, the CFPB is “seeking to move away from highly complicated rules that have long been a staple of consumer financial regulation and towards simpler and clearer rules.” This new approach, together with a “dramatic increase” of guidance, will help the agency to more clearly communicate the agency’s expectations in a simple and straightforward manner, the agency said.
This could indicate that the bureau is opting for issuing more guidance or using other tools rather than new regulations, or that the agency may simply need additional time to decide whether to issue new rules. The agency publishes its regulatory agenda on a semi-annual basis, in the spring and fall.
Read more: CFPB Wants to Use Banks’ Revenue Data to Change Card Late Fees
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