California is launching a new cabinet-level agency that state officials say will consolidate consumer protection and business oversight of practices that increase costs for consumers and undermine fair competition. The California Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA), which officially launched July 1, will be led...
European regulators are reportedly granting themselves more authority to police Big Tech’s consumer protection failures. As the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (July 12), this comes as part of a larger push by the European Commission (EC) to increase social media protections. According to the...
A number of states have moved to ban so-called “surveillance pricing” amid pushback from consumers and advocacy groups. That’s according to a report Thursday (May 14) by Money, which notes this pricing practice comes as algorithmic technology grows in sophistication, letting retailers more easily leverage personal data...
Staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are reportedly heading back to the office. The move comes more than a year after the White House shuttered the financial regulator’s headquarters in Washington, Reuters reported Tuesday (May 12), citing sources with knowledge of the matter. The return-to-office plan for...
May 12, 2025
Welcome to another edition of Washington Weekly, the series in which PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster and QED Investors partner Amias Gerety start their conversation with a Manic Monday check-in. The weekly question: How manic is this Monday? Well, turns out this Monday — even if only for the moment — was somewhat magical. The freeze […]
March 17, 2025
By the standards set previously in Q1, this Monday wasn’t as manic as most. In fact there’s an element of “business as usual” in this installment of the Washington Weekly...
February 09, 2025
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) new boss has put a hold on consumer protections. Workers at the financial regulator will work from home this week while their headquarters are...
January 17, 2024
Labels are popular on Capitol Hill. And this week the labels are flying fast and furiously, aimed at big banks and credit unions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put...
August 19, 2026
Federal regulators are warning that companies using consumers’ personal data to set prices could be violating the law. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published an enforcement bulletin on this topic Wednesday (Aug. 19), asking for public comment on the topic. “When consumers see a listed price, they expect it to be the same price that […]
July 12, 2026
European regulators are reportedly granting themselves more authority to police Big Tech’s consumer protection failures. As the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (July 12), this comes as part of a...
May 14, 2026
A number of states have moved to ban so-called “surveillance pricing” amid pushback from consumers and advocacy groups. That’s according to a report Thursday (May 14) by Money, which notes this pricing...
May 13, 2026
Staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are reportedly heading back to the office. The move comes more than a year after the White House shuttered the financial regulator’s headquarters in...
