The legislation in the 117th Congress would address burdens of CFPB regulations and update existing legislation to align with consumers’ modern communication preferences.
05/17/2022 11:45 A.M.
3 minute read
ACA International is supporting two bills on Capitol Hill related to cost-benefit analysis of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s regulations and modernizing the E-SIGN Act to make it easier to communicate with consumers.
CFPB Regulations and Cost-Benefit Analysis
In a letter to U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, ACA outlined renewed support of his legislation to enhance rulemaking requirements from the CFPB through a cost-benefit analysis.
“Regulations from the CFPB that do not account for the costs impacting regulated entities such as staff training time, implementing new technologies, and creating new policies and procedures, for example, have the potential to create excessive burdens,” said ACA CEO Scott Purcell in the letter. “These regulatory burdens are eventually passed on to consumers, force consolidation of industries, and leave consumers and businesses with less choice.”
A cost-benefit analysis and the bureau’s regulatory process was addressed during CFPB Director Rohit Chopra’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee in April, including from Mooney.
Mooney said the bureau’s rulemaking doesn’t consider what the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy said would increase burdens on small businesses and the cost of credit.
Mooney’s legislation, co-sponsored by 13 Republicans on the committee, will enhance the rulemaking requirements for the bureau to include a cost-benefit analysis, ACA previously reported.
“My bill will help stop regulatory overreach by the CFPB; and provide regulatory relief to small businesses, community banks, and credit unions across West Virginia,” Mooney said in a news release.
Mooney stressed during the hearing that the bureau’s analysis is not as thorough as other agencies and needs to be rigorous when evaluating the impact on small businesses.
Read the complete letter from ACA on the cost-benefit analysis bill here. Mooney’s bill was referred to the House Financial Services Committee.
E-SIGN Act
- 3715, the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (E-SIGN Act) was first introduced in 2020 during the 116th Congress to modernize the law with requirements on streamlining how consumers consent to receiving electronic documents like bank statements, account information and contracts.
“ACA supports efforts to modernize the E-SIGN Act,” Purcell said in a letter to its sponsors, U.S. Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., Todd Young, R-Ind., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. “The E-SIGN Act in its current form makes it more difficult to communicate with consumers. Limiting consumers’ ability to receive information they need electronically is not a helpful step toward protecting them.”
The CFPB has noted the need for these consumer communication methods:
“Consumers benefit from communications with consumer financial products providers in many contexts, including receiving offers of goods and services and notifications about their accounts. Recent years have seen rapid increases in the use of smartphones, text messages, email, social media, and other new or newer methods of communication. With the advent and deployment of these communication technologies, it is important to review how statutes and regulations apply to them.”
Purcell added in the letter that “the ability to communicate with consumers, in the way they prefer, is an important step in providing them with more options for controlling their financial future and for having access to credit and services.”
The E-SIGN Act of 2022 was introduced in the Senate in March and referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Read ACA’s complete letter on the E-SIGN Act here.
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