On August 8, 2020, President Trump signed four executive orders that are designed to provide additional COVID-19 relief as talks on Capitol Hill collapsed on August 7 between White House negotiators and Democratic leaders...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled last week in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Navient Corp. that the PA Attorney General could bring a parallel enforcement action against Navient, a servicer of federal...more
8/5/2020
/ Constitutional Challenges ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Department of Education ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Student Loans ,
Higher Education Act ,
Misrepresentation ,
Preemption ,
State Attorneys General ,
Student Loans ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
A group of 22 state attorneys general joined by the District of Columbia AG filed a lawsuit in a California federal district court against Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) seeking...more
The CFPB announced that it has entered into a proposed settlement with several of the defendants in the lawsuit it filed in January 2020 in a California federal district court that alleges the defendants obtained consumer...more
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, and Vermont have announced that they are participating in a multi-state initiative to provide relief to borrowers whose student loans are not covered by the CARES Act through...more
A coalition of groups that includes the Consumer Bankers Association, the National Council of Higher Education Resources, and consumer advocates, has sent a letter to House and Senate leadership urging Congress to extend...more
Senator Elizabeth Warren, joined by a group of other Democratic Senators and Senator Bernie Sanders, sent a series of letters to companies that service private student loans requesting “a detailed report of the steps your...more
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) includes the following provisions of particular interest to members of the consumer financial services industry...more
The CARES Act contains several provisions related to higher education, some of which pertain to student loan relief...more
On March 6, the Student Borrower Protection Center, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and the National Consumer Law Center sent a letter to the Alternative Reference...more
Last Monday, the CFPB announced that it had entered into a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Education to replace the MOU that was terminated by the ED effective October 1, 2017. The new MOU, which is...more
2/10/2020
/ Borrowers ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Consumer Complaint Management ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Consumer Lenders ,
Department of Education ,
Director Kraninger ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Memorandum of Understanding ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Student Loans ,
Supervision
The Student Borrower Protection Center has sent a letter to CFPB Director Kraninger urging her to designate the National Student Clearinghouse as a “consumer reporting agency,” supervise it as a “larger participant,” and add...more
The CFPB filed a complaint last week in a California federal district court against several companies and individuals involved in offering student loan debt relief services for allegedly obtaining consumer reports unlawfully,...more
1/14/2020
/ Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Consumer Reports ,
Damages ,
Debt Relief ,
Debt-Relief Industry ,
Disgorgement ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Injunctions ,
Redress Payments ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Student Loans ,
Students ,
Telemarketing Sales Rule
The CFPB, joined by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, North Carolina Department of Justice, and the Los Angeles City Attorney, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against...more
11/5/2019
/ Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Debt Relief ,
Debt-Relief Industry ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Student Loans ,
Telemarketing Sales Rule ,
UDAP
Final regulations adopted by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to implement the state’s new student loan servicing law became effective on October 16, 2019 upon the publication by the NYDFS of a Notice of...more
Illinois’ Democratic legislature recently passed, and its progressive Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, recently signed into law, the Student Investment Account Act, which establishes a Student Investment Account to be...more
10/28/2019
/ Borrowers ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Educational Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Investment Portfolios ,
Loans ,
New Legislation ,
State and Local Government ,
State Funding ,
State Treasurers ,
Student Loans
The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has announced the creation of a Student Debt Advisory Board to advise on consumer protection, student financial products or services, and communities that have been...more
Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown and Patty Murray have sent a letter to Robert Cameron, the CFPB’s new Private Education Loan Ombudsman, in which they set forth their expectations for the Ombudsman’s Office. The...more
In less than a year, pre-dispute arbitration agreements will be clearly permissible again now that the Department of Education has finalized its proposal to rescind the Obama administration’s “Borrower Defense” rule issued in...more
9/16/2019
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Borrower Defense Rule ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Department of Education ,
Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL) ,
Federal Funding ,
Final Rules ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Responsibility Standards ,
Labor Regulations ,
Pre-Dispute Arbitration ,
Student Loans ,
Title IV
The CFPB has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s lawsuit against Navient Corp. The PA AG’s lawsuit includes claims that Navient violated the...more
9/6/2019
/ Amicus Briefs ,
Appointments Clause ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Navient ,
Regulatory Violations ,
State Attorneys General ,
Student Loans ,
Take Care Clause ,
UDAAP ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
The CFPB has announced the appointment of Robert G. Cameron to serve as the Bureau’s private education loan ombudsman. Mr. Cameron joins the Bureau from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency where he was a...more
The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has issued proposed regulations to implement the legislation enacted in April 2019 that requires servicers of student loans to be licensed, imposes servicing standards,...more
8/13/2019
/ Comment Period ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Cybersecurity ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Licensing Rules ,
Loan Servicer ,
NYDFS ,
Popular ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Student Loans ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
On July 30, 2019, Acting New Jersey Governor Sheila Oliver signed into law SB 1149, which requires student loan servicers to be licensed, creates an Office of the Student Loan Ombudsman within the NJ Department of Banking and...more
A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators have introduced the “ISA Student Protection Act of 2019” that would create a legal framework for income share agreements (ISA) offered to students. ...more
8/7/2019
/ ECOA ,
EFTA ,
Electronic Fund Transfer Act ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
FDCPA ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Military Lending Act ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Qualifying Income ,
Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) ,
Student Loans ,
Students ,
Tuition
The CFPB’s annual fair lending report covering its 2018 activities was published in today’s Federal Register. While most of the report recycles information about which we have previously blogged, it does contain the...more
7/8/2019
/ Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Credit ,
Data Points ,
Debt Collection ,
Disparate Impact ,
ECOA ,
Fair Lending ,
Information Reports ,
Mortgage Loan Originators ,
Mortgages ,
Student Loans