The American Bankers Association has joined with the National Consumer Law Center and ACA International in proposing to the Federal Communications Commission a rewrite of the “revoke all” rule. The rule is set to take effect on January 31, 2027, but the FCC is currently reconsidering the rule.
Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, with limited exceptions, a bank or other business can place an autodialed or prerecorded voice call or text message only with the prior express consent of the called party. Called parties have the right to revoke their consent to receive the calls.
Under the revoke all rule, a bank or other business is required to treat a consumer’s revocation of consent under the TCPA to receive one type of call or message as a revocation of all consented-to calls and messages, even if that was not the consumer’s intent. Consequently, if a consumer responds ‘STOP’ to a text message from their bank on any topic – such as marketing messages – the rule would effectively require the bank to stop sending them all messages, including fraud alerts notifying them of potentially suspicious activity on their account. The rule also requires a caller to treat any possible expression of revocation as a revocation under the TCPA if a “reasonable person” would understand the words to have conveyed a request to revoke consent.
The revisions proposed by the three organizations address both problems with the law.
“The proposed revisions allow the caller to interpret a revocation request as applying only to the category of messages to which the revocation was directed, while also requiring the caller to provide notice of how revocation will be construed and a means for the consumer to revoke consent with respect to all messages requiring consent,” wrote the organizations in a letter accompanying the proposed revisions. “The revisions also allow a caller to designate a prescribed list of exclusive, reasonable means of revocation in the message sent to the called party.”
ABA consulted with a group of bank in-house TCPA counsel throughout the negotiation process with NCLC and ACA International.
At the request of ABA and NCLC, the FCC in January issued an order extending the effective date of the revoke all rule from April 11, 2026, to January 31, 2027.
