The American Bankers Association this week joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Bankers Association in urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to support banks and other businesses seeking to test new disclosures that may be clearer and more understandable than existing, legally required ones.
The groups submitted a comment letter in response to the bureau’s proposed revisions to its trial disclosure programs policy. The CFPB finalized the policy five years ago, but no such trial disclosures have yet been approved.
In the letter, the groups pointed out a business may seek to test an existing disclosure in a new format — such as on a smartphone or tablet — but may not be legally permitted to use the improved format. They also urged the CFPB to provide robust legal protections to companies that seek to test a new disclosure and to protect those companies’ sensitive commercial information disclosed to the bureau during the trial, and to coordinate with other regulators and to clarify certain elements of the proposed revised policy.
