The American Bankers Association is urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s current leadership to withdraw a proposed interpretive rule that would expand Electronic Fund Transfer Act protections to new digital payment mechanisms, such as those involving stablecoins and certain credit card rewards points.
The CFPB proposed the interpretive rule in January under former Director Rohit Chopra. In a letter to CFPB Acting Director Russ Vought, ABA said the rulemaking is not the proper avenue for the bureau to pursue an expansion of its regulatory reach.
“Instead, in accordance with the president’s recent executive orders directing agencies to substantially scale back the number of regulations and to identify overreaching regulations, the CFPB should withdraw its proposal until such time that it more clearly lays out its statutory rationale,” ABA said. “Further, the bureau should not rush to get ahead of ongoing congressional activities that may resolve several issues legislatively.”
“While ABA appreciates the CFPB soliciting feedback from the industry, the proposed interpretive rule is too simplistic and broad in its approach, indiscriminately applying a single regulatory regime to a wide range of disparate product types without consideration of the complexities of the respective markets and sans adequate cost/benefit analyses (either individually or cumulatively) to help inform stakeholders and the Bureau itself of possible operational challenges,” ABA added.
