Join us Thursday, July 24th at 2:00 p.m. EST! In today’s competitive lending environment, standing out locally is more critical than ever. While Fintechs leverage speed and scale, traditional and nonbank lenders have a powerful asset they often underutilize: their local branch presence. This webinar explores how branch-level marketing is evolving—and how you – as […]

The Senate passed the budget reconciliation legislation (commonly called the “One Big Beautiful Bill) by a vote of 51-50 today (July 1), with Vice President JD Vance giving the Republicans the tie-breaking vote for final Senate passage.  The bill will go back to the House of Representatives to be voted on quickly before adjourning for […]

The American Financial Services Association, the nation’s oldest trade association solely focused on the consumer credit industry, today formally handed the reins of leadership to Celia Winslow as the trade group’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Winslow succeeds Bill Himpler, who announced plans to retire in late 2024. Winslow brings almost twenty years of leadership […]

Uncertain economic conditions make it hard for already financially burdened U.S. consumers to meet their basic needs and prepare for future costs. Surveys estimate that almost half of Americans have less than $500 in savings to cover emergency expenses, and despite the right-sizing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, regulatory uncertainty for businesses and consumers […]

Last week the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations held a hearing entitled, “From Watchdog to Attack Dog: Examining the CFPB’s Chopra-era Assault on Disfavored Industries.” The focus was on regulations imposed and actions taken by the CFPB during both the Biden and Trump administrations, with testimony from James Kim, Partner at Cooley; Jennifer […]

As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve announced last week that it was leaving short-term interest rates unchanged. Thus, the target range of the federal funds rate stands at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, as it has since last December. With economic uncertainty running high, the FOMC, the Fed’s interest rate setting body, has adopted […]

This week, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) testified before the House Financial Services Committee in support of the Ending Scam Credit Repair Act (ESCRA). This bipartisan bill sponsored by Reps. McBride and Young Kim (R-CA) targets deceptive credit repair organizations (CROs) that mislead consumers with high upfront fees and false promises of credit score improvements. Representative McBride testified that, […]

Join us on June 26, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. EST! When lenders only zero-in on per-transaction fees, they miss what’s really driving up total cost of acceptance: avoidable payment exceptions, manual agent intervention and legacy technology. Join PayNearMe as we dive deeper into the factors which influence total cost of acceptance and see how Payment […]

“Industry Expertise” is sponsored content produced by AFSA’s Business Partners’ to provide thought leadership and best practices for AFSA member companies. For more information about this sponsored content opportunity, contact Dan Bucherer.   Balancing Compliance and Convenience: Consumer Finance Trends to Watch In today’s fast-evolving financial services landscape, lenders and merchants face a critical challenge: how […]

​AFSA’s State Government Affairs team recently submitted a lengthy letter to the New York Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) expressing significant concerns regarding proposed amendments to debt collection rules. While AFSA supports fair debt collection practices, the current proposals could unintentionally harm New York consumers and financial institutions. Key Concerns and Recommendations: Original Creditors: AFSA argues that applying the […]