In the Media
CFPB’s Closure Not ‘A Free Pass’ For Financial Compliance
Read Time: 1 minMember Brian Fink was quoted in a Law360 article outlining the fallout and recommended next steps for financial institutions in light of the Trump administration’s halt in supervision and examination activity.
Brian Fink, a member of the financial services practice at McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, said the fate of published CFPB rules that haven’t yet gone into effect is one of the more complex issues arising from the agency pause. Top of mind on that front is the agency’s payday lending rule — set to go into effect next month — which would limit the number of times payday lenders can try hitting up borrowers’ bank accounts for payments.
During the first Trump administration’s pause on the CFPB, the agency issued a rulemaking suspending the effective date of an earlier iteration of the payday rule. Fink, who has held roles at the CFPB including supervisory analyst and program manager in the agency’s Office of SupervisionPolicy, said that process should be how the agency approaches the rule now.
He said the best move for firms to deal with uncertainty surrounding the implementation of that rule is to “treat it like it’s real until you know that it’s not.”
“There are things the bureau does that will need to continue on in some form,” Fink said, pointing to annual revisions of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, among other things. “Just shuttering it without a plan doesn’t really get industry what it needs.”
He added that bright-line banking rules and long-standing federal consumer financial laws aren’t necessarily changing, even if one of the industry’s dominant regulators ends up being suspended for four years.
“The obligations are remaining,” he said. “It’s just a matter of who visits you to enforce them.”