AFSA Joins Other Trades in Petition Filing at FCC
On March 30, the American Financial Services Association joined several other trade associations on a petition to the FCC requesting an immediate ruling, clarification, or waiver regarding parts of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Specifically, the petitions asks that certain phone calls utilizing an auto-dialer system and text messages to consumers related to COVID-19 from financial institutions be permitted without the consent of the called party may be permitted pursuant to the TCPA’s “Emergency Purposes Exception.”
As outlined in the petition, calls and text messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic from financial institutions may include offers to defer payments, waive fees, and other relief mechanisms to help ease the financial burden for consumers, particularly those who have seen their employment disrupted. In such times of emergency, as with this pandemic, it is important that financial institutions can contact their customers with important, and often, time-sensitive calls to protect the consumer’s financial well-being.
And regrettably, the pandemic has created an environment ripe for predatory lending and fraud that will require financial institutions to issue more fraud alerts and suspicious transaction notifications.
March 30th, 2020
