CFPB updates its rulemaking agenda

Participating in the Office of Management and Budget’s initiative to publish an agenda of federal regulatory actions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published its plans for the coming year.

Participating in the Office of Management and Budget’s initiative to publish an agenda of federal regulatory actions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published its plans for the coming year.

The CFPB said it will focus intensely on implementing the mortgage-related rules which were released earlier this year and which will take effect in January 2014.

Currently in the pipeline is a rule to integrate and streamline federal mortgage disclosures, the bureau said. A rule the CFPB expects to finalize by the fall of 2013, the bureau will schedule the implementation for this additional mortgage rule for after the January 2014 effective date of the earlier mortgage rules, the agency said on its blog.

To see a list of the mortgage-related rules which have already been finalized, click here.

For a CFPB web page dedicated to helping banks implement its mortgage rules, click here.

Nonbank entities will have the bureau’s attention in the coming year, the CFPB said. In March, the CFPB proposed a rule to expand its authority to larger, nonbank companies in the student loan servicing market. The bureau expects to finalize the rule in the coming year.

As a result of the agency’s outreach and research, it also will begin to consider regulations to govern debt collection; the CFPB said this industry produces the most complaints to the federal government. The bureau also said it intends to write new rules for payday loans and deposit advance products; and it expects to propose a rule to strengthen federal consumer protections for prepaid cards.

As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act the bureau inherited rules from other agencies; the CFPB said it will seek comment on ways to streamline and modernize those regulations in the coming year.

Specifically, the CFPB hinted at relief for banks on information sharing notices. “A number of comments [which the bureau received on its request for information which closed in June] suggested that eliminating the annual privacy notices where there has been no change in policy would reduce unwanted paperwork for consumers and unnecessary regulatory burdens,” the CFPB said

Fredrikson & Byron Law