Ex-student loan official: ‘We dropped a trillion dollars of debt into the market’ with little thought to oversight

We’ve been talking about America’s student-loan problem all wrong, according to the former top student-loan official in the country.   Seth Frotman, who resigned in protest earlier this year from his role as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s student loan ombudsman, made the case Thursday that solving our nation’s student-debt challenges requires acknowledging policy makers’ and company executives’ role in creating it.

FCC RECEIVES FINAL APPROVALS FOR NEW OFFICE OF ECONOMICS AND ANALYTICS

WASHINGTON, October 25, 2018—The Federal Communications Commission has received all approvals required to launch its new Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA).   The FCC earlier this year voted to create OEA to better integrate the use of economics and data into its rulemakings and other proceedings. This reorganization of the agency required approval from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and the Office of Management and Budget. It also required the FCC to reach an agreement with the National
Treasury Employees Union. All of these steps have now been completed.

MBA members urge CFPB to update LO Comp rule

Member companies of the Mortgage Bankers Association have asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make changes to the Loan Originator Compensation (LO Comp) rule, saying updating it should be the agency’s top priority.

Data: Fraud’s toll on consumer trust

The hacks keep coming — most recently to Facebook and the federal government’s health insurance sites — and consumer trust in online security systems disintegrates along with them, according to a number of recent surveys. During the first half of this year, 3.2 billion consumer files were compromised worldwide, up 72 percent over last year, according to Gemalto. The effect on consumers is a growing sense of mistrust, casting shadows on the payments industry.

The State of Personal Loans in 2018

This past decade has seen the personal loan industry grow from a fledgling, high-risk business to a booming space occupied by numerous lenders and prime borrowers.   According to the most recent consumer data from TransUnion, the national personal loan debt stood at $107 billion in Q2 of 2017. This represents a 10.80 percent increase from the same quarter in 2016 and a 132 percent increase from 2012. 

Latest State Action: Washington AG Sues Debt Collectors

Demonstrating heightened enforcement efforts by some state regulators, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against a pair of debt collection companies and their owner, asserting the defendants were operating without a license in violation of state law.  The lawsuit is only the latest example of state attorneys general (AGs) stepping in to fill the void as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) has slowed down its enforcement efforts.

State bank regulators sue feds over bank charter for ‘fintech’ firms

State bank regulators are suing a federal counterpart over a provision aimed at defining banking in the Internet age.  The Conference of State Bank Supervisors filed a lawsuit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Thursday over the latest version of its financial technology charter. The charter would allow financial technology companies that don’t take deposits to circumvent state-by-state registration and some state-level regulations, as banks do.  “Common sense and the law tell us that a nonbank is not a bank,” said CSBS President and CEO John Ryan in a release. “Thus, CSBS is calling on the courts to stop the unlawful, unwarranted expansion of powers by the OCC.”

NAFCU urges FCC to clarify ‘autodialer’ by end of year

After meeting with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier this week to discuss credit unions' concerns related to the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS), NAFCU's Ann Kossachev urged the agency to issue an order to clarify the definition by the end of 2018.   Kossachev, NAFCU's senior regulatory affairs counsel, was responding to the FCC's request for additional comments on the issue in light of mixed court decisions on the matter:

CallMiner Updates Real-Time Speech Analytics Platform – Improving Scalability, Speed to Insight, and Integration with Existing Agent Desktops and Workflows

Clearwater, FL – October 25, 2018 – CallMiner, a leading platform provider of award-winning speech and customer engagement analytics, demonstrated its updated real-time speech analytics module, Eureka Alert, at the 10^th annual LISTEN customer conference.  Eureka Alert combines AI-driven automated transcription, redaction, and alerting to provide real-time direction to contact center agents and supervisors to drive specific outcomes within a call as it is occurring, or alerting management of critical risk or customer experience issues.

PDCflow Celebrates 15 Years Serving Customers

Ogden, Utah — On October 16th, 2018, Accounts Receivable payment hub PDCflow reached a landmark anniversary, celebrating 15 years in business.  The company was created in 2003 specifically to provide payment processing services to the debt collection industry. The first goal of PDCflow was to provide fast, efficient payment methods to our client’s consumers. Since then, the cloud-based payment software has added online payments, eSignature, document delivery, recurring schedules, IVR and more to serve the payment and compliance needs of accounts receivable professionals.

Attorney General Becerra: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Mulvaney’s Failure to Protect Service Members is a Disgrace

SACRAMENTO –  Today, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra joined a bipartisan multistate coalition criticizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under Acting Director Mick Mulvaney for its failure to protect military service members. In a multistate letter, the 33 attorneys general condemned CFPB Acting Director Mulvaney for the decision to strip the agency’s oversight of lenders under the Military Lending Act (MLA). This oversight is a vital component of safeguarding service members and their families from unscrupulous lenders and the burden of unaffordable debt. The MLA caps interest rates, bans arbitration, and limits finance charges for consumer loans to individuals in the military and their families. By eliminating oversight of lender compliance, the CFPB puts military service members and their families at risk.

Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Settles with Cash Express

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) today announced a settlement with Cash Express, LLC, a small-dollar lender based in Cookeville, Tenn., that offers high-cost, short-term loans, such as payday and title loans, as well as check-cashing services. Cash Express owns and operates approximately 328 retail lending outlets in four states: Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

FDIC chair: Risk has shifted from banks to mortgage servicers

One of the nation’s top bank regulators says the banking system is safe, but worries about risks at non-bank financial institutions, particularly mortgage servicers. The remarks from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Jelena McWilliams come days after regulators freed the last “too big to fail” non-bank from extra regulation.

Building Loyalty with Gen Z and Millennials Starts with a Better Experience

What is the price of loyalty? In an era where consumer preferences are changing, garnering customer loyalty is more valuable than ever before. To explore loyalty trends, especially among Gen Z and Millennial consumers, TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) today released a new report, "Consumer First: The Path Forward in Financial Services," during the Money 20/20 conference. Studying loyalty dynamics is critically important, as consumers find themselves with an unprecedented wealth of diverse options available when it comes to financial services.

Fintech Leaders to face Senate Inquiry

On 17 October 2018, the Senate resolved to refer certain credit service providers, including payday lenders, fintech “buy now, pay later” providers and credit repair agencies to the Senate Economics References Committee for inquiry. Under the proposed terms of reference, the inquiry will look at:

Rethinking privacy in the age of AI

Autonomous technologies driven by artificial intelligence (AI) are already being deployed for new life-enhancing and potentially life-saving uses such as disease detection, precision medicine, driving assistance, increased productivity, safety at work and education accessibility. While these developments are important and exciting, they also present new concerns over privacy, data security and ethics. Many of these issues will be discussed at the 40th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners Conference (ICDPPC), which will focus on ethics in a data-driven age and explore how to ensure dignity and fairness to individuals.

Enhanced Fraud Suite Unifies Personal and Digital Identities

TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) together with iovation, a TransUnion company, today announced at Money20/20 the launch of IDVision with iovation, an enhanced suite of identity management, authentication and fraud prevention solutions that protect businesses from fraud while enabling great experiences for their online users.

FTC Announces PrivacyCon 2019 and Calls for Presentations

As part of its efforts to address evolving privacy and data security challenges, the Federal Trade Commission is announcing a call for presentations for its fourth annual PrivacyCon, to be held on June 27, 2019.  PrivacyCon 2019 aims to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders, including researchers, academics, industry representatives, consumer advocates, and government regulators, to discuss the latest research and trends related to consumer privacy and data security. 

The student loan bubble might be about to pop

Amid headlines of record-low unemployment and a bullish economy, millennials burdened with student loans lurk behind the scenes. Their vast sums of debt are not reflected in the current description of the economy, but have implications for its future.

Bureau releases Complaint snapshot: 50 state report

Every day, people across the country submit complaints to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. The complaints are about a wide variety of consumer financial products and services, from checking accounts to auto loans. Like the states they call home, each person’s complaint is different.  Today, we released our Complaint snapshot: 50 state report, which illustrates both the unique—and shared—challenges reported by people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Here are some highlights from our latest report. Since Jan. 1, 2015:

CASE UPDATE: Attorney General Shapiro Announces Win in Court Battle with Nation’s Largest Student Loan Company

HARRISBURG — Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced an important, favorable court ruling in his lawsuit against the nation’s largest servicer of federal and private student loans, Navient Corporation, and its subsidiary Navient Solutions, LLC. The legal victory will enable the Attorney General’s legal team to review loan records which Navient had previously refused to provide.

A.G. Underwood Urges CFPB To Protect Military Servicemembers From Financial Exploitation

NEW YORK – Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood today joined a bipartisan coalition of 33 Attorneys General calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Acting Director Mick Mulvaney to continue protecting military servicemembers against predatory lenders under the Military Lending Act (MLA). The Attorneys General urge the CFPB to reconsider its reported decision to stop examining lenders to ensure they are complying with the MLA.

New FICO system could lift credit scores by including checking and savings history

You may soon earn a higher credit score if you balance your checkbook responsibly.  FICO, the developer of the most widely used credit score, is rolling out a new score next year that considers how you manage your checking, savings and money market accounts in addition to how you pay back your credit cards and loans.  This additional information could help boost the credit scores of some of the 79 million Americans who have poor credit histories, along with the 53 million who have no credit score at all under the traditional FICO model. That, in turn, could help them qualify for a credit card or loan.

A.G. Underwood Announces $65 Million Settlement With Wells Fargo For Misleading Investors Regarding Cross-Sell Scandal

NEW YORK – Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood announced today that Wells Fargo & Company will pay a $65 million penalty following the Attorney General’s investigation into the bank’s fraudulent statements to investors in connection with its “cross-sell” business model, related sales practices, and the bank’s publicly reported cross-sell metrics. 

Cabot Credit Management and CallMiner Win ‘Best Use of Technology’ Award at the Credit Excellence Awards 2018

Waltham, MA, Oct 23, 2018  –  CallMiner, the leading platform provider of award-winning speech and customer engagement analytics, announced today that its customer, Cabot Credit Management (Cabot), has won the ‘Best Use of Technology’ Award at the Credit Excellence Awards 2018 presented by CCR Magazine.

Health Data Breach on Healthcare.gov Portal Impacts 75K People

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) direct enrollment pathway for agents and brokers suffered a cyber attack last week and the hackers accessed the files of approximately 75,000 individuals, according to a new release issued by CMS last Friday. CMS officials said that earlier last week, CMS staff detected anomalous activity in the Federally Facilitated Exchanges, or FFE’s Direct Enrollment pathway for agents and brokers, which a HealthCare.gov portal. The Direct Enrollment pathway, first launched in 2013, allows agents and brokers to assist consumers with applications for coverage in the FFE.

Some cybersecurity apps could be worse for privacy than nothing at all

JPMorgan to build Silicon Valley fintech office

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) said on Friday that it was building a new “fintech campus” in Silicon Valley for more than 1,000 employees, as it pushes to keep abreast of changes in digital payments.
The building is set to open in Palo Alto, California in 2020, the bank said in a statement and interviews. Most of the employees at the site will work for JPMorgan’s Chase Merchant Services division, which is the second-biggest U.S. processor of card payments for merchants.

Fall 2018 rulemaking agenda

The Bureau’s general purpose, as specified in section 1021 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), is to implement and enforce Federal consumer financial law consistently for the purpose of ensuring that all consumers have access to markets for consumer financial products and services and that markets for consumer financial products and services are fair, transparent, and competitive. Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, Federal agencies must publish regulatory agendas twice a year. , which is led by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

US banks and fintechs form group to tackle customer data-sharing

Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are among the banks backing Financial Data Exchange (FDX), alongside a host of firms, including Intuit, Xero and Yodlee, that want access to consumer account data.    In recent years there has been a tug of war between banks and third parties over access to client data. While startups offering new digital services argue that consumers want to be able to share information, banks have been reticent, citing security concerns.

SEC Launches New Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology

Washington D.C., Oct. 18, 2018 —

Department of Consumer Affairs Settles Investigation with Debt Collection Agency for Using Illegal Collection Letters

NEW YORK, NY – Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Lorelei Salas today announced a settlement with Enhanced Recovery Company, LLC, a licensed debt collection agency that sent illegal collection letters to tens of thousands of New Yorkers. The settlement resolves DCA’s findings that the debt collection agency failed to include information required by law on their collection letters, including the name of the agency and the name of a live contact to whom the consumer could speak. DCA investigated Enhanced Recovery Company as part of a proactive investigative initiative of debt collection agencies and their practices.

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