The American Financial Services Association participated in a session at the Association for Corporate Counsel’s annual meeting this week. The session, Call Me Maybe? The Financial Services’ Perspective on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, served to educate in-house counsel across all industry sectors about the latest trends, rules and considerations for communicating with customers, common violations, calls made to mobile phones, class actions, potential damages, company liability for third-party calls, particularly debt collectors, and other recent issues. The panel discussion was moderated by Prabir Chakrabarty, Vice President/Associate General Counsel with Mariner Finance.

In this edition of the AFSA CEO Update, Bill Himpler speaks about the key issues we learned about at the AFSA Annual Meeting and about how the association is responding back in Washington.

Bloomberg recently highlighted the online “payday lending” marketplace. While Bloomberg portrayed the type of loans as “installment loans,” they are a business model that leverages today’s online consumer culture that is very different from traditional installment lending.

AFSA’s State Government Affairs (SGA) team this week sent a comment letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in response to an opinion request from a state representative regarding the Texas Finance code. In the request, the representative asked the attorney general if a “credit services organization”, which is the state’s definition of payday and vehicle title lender, could extend forms of consumer credit beyond those explicitly authorized – namely deferred presentment or motor vehicle title loans. In the letter, AFSA strongly urged the attorney general to uphold the current interpretation of the Texas Finance Code, which maintains that credit services organizations should only be allowed to extend the forms of consumer credit that are explicitly authorized. Unlike credit services organizations, AFSA members are regulated and licensed by the Texas Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner. Altering the existing interpretation of the Texas Finance Code by allowing unregulated and unlicensed credit services organizations to extend other forms of consumer credit will open the door to an increase in predatory lending practices in Texas.

The American Financial Services Association yesterday submitted a comment letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) voicing its strong support for a final rule allowing state adoption of electronic odometer disclosure systems. Odometer disclosure statements are tied to vehicle sale and transfer documents. State regulations have in the past required “wet” (i.e. handwritten) signatures as a means of preventing odometer fraud. Now, state policymakers will have the opportunity to put in place more flexible rules that allow for an electronic signature.

The American Financial Services Association (AFSA) on yesterday announced that its Board of Directors elected a new chairman, chair-elect and vice chairman-treasurer for the next 12 months. The appointments were made at the close of the 2019 AFSA Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

In this episode of the AFSA Extra Credit Podcast, we speak to Rex Ellison, President & CEO of Republic Finance and Chairman of the AFSA Education Foundation.

AFSA last week commented on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) proposed rule amending its interpretation of the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standards. Specifically, HUDs proposed rule changes move to align the standard with the Supreme Court’s decision in Inclusive Communities.

Two consumer-credit industry executives were honored with the 2019 American Financial Services Association (AFSA) Distinguished Service Award (DSA) today at AFSA’s 2019 Annual Meeting in Nashville.

LISTEN