The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will move in April to finalize amendments to its small-dollar lending rule, CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger told lawmakers during a House Financial Services Committee hearing today. The bureau last year issued a proposal that would rescind the rule’s underwriting requirements, and is currently reviewing an “extensive number of comments,” Kraninger said. She acknowledged that “consumers do have a desire for [small-dollar loans] . . . There is a significant demand, and I would say a need, for small-dollar lending products, certainly ones that are responsible.”
Along with the final rule, she signaled that the bureau will also address a petition from the industry on the rule’s payments provision. “Financial institutions have argued that there were some products pulled into that that were unintended,” she said. “Working through all of that and moving forward in a way that is transparent in April is what I am planning to do.” In prior comments, ABA urged the bureau to exclude bridge loans, lines of credit, and other traditional consumer loans offered by banks from the rule’s coverage.
