AFSA President & CEO Bill Himpler this week spoke to the 31 attendees at the American Financial Services Association Education Foundation Leadership Development Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

The “Stopping Bad Robocalls Act” on Wednesday, July 17 passed the full House Energy and Commerce Committee by a bipartisan 48-0 vote. The purpose of the bill is to reduce illegal robocalls that harm and annoy consumers. The bill changed significantly from when it was introduced earlier this year. While AFSA supports some of the provisions in the legislation, AFSA expressed concerns that legitimate calls could be erroneously blocked under the legislation. AFSA worked with members of the committee on changes that would lessen the impact the bill would have on legitimate businesses contacting their customers.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) today voted to propose a delay in the implementation deadline of the new Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) accounting standard for all private companies and for small public companies.

AFSA's SGA team this week attended the US Chamber of Commerce’s Data Done Right Conference. At the conference, elected officials, chief regulators, business executives, and leaders of consumer privacy groups spoke about the current state of data privacy and the need for a national data privacy law to avoid a patchwork of state laws.

Join us July 25th at 2 p.m. ET for Opportunities in Used Vehicle Financing, presented by TransUnion.

Yesterday’s announced settlement by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) with a well-known debt-settlement provider – along with several other recent actions by the CFPB and the FTC against debt-settlement firms – highlights not only the need to continue to protect financially vulnerable consumers, but also to reinforce the importance of consumer financial literacy.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on June 25 held the first in its evolving symposia series, dealing with the term “abusive” and if the Bureau should use its rulemaking authority to further define the term. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has developed the “unfair” and “deceptive” portions of UDAAP (Unfair, Deceptive, Abusive Acts and Practices), but “abusive” has remained vague.

Federal regulators started pushing large banks to offer small-dollar loans to customers as an alternative to payday loans last year. A Bloomberg BGov article this morning quotes analysts and large banking institutions saying, essentially that while they want to help consumers, the financial institutions aren’t equipped to deal with the costs associated with underwriting, servicing and marketing small-dollar products for smaller amounts of credit.

Complaints about robocalls continue to rise, and occur seemingly anywhere, at any time. Members of Congress say they hear about the robocall problem in town hall events back in their districts. It’s no different at the regulatory agencies – where robocalls are an easy Enemy No. 1. So it’s no surprise that the federal government is determined to do something about them.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Research has released a study on consumer credit card payment behavior. The study examines whether consumer pay off their balances monthly, retain a balance from one month to the next, keep an inactive credit card, or transition between any of the aforementioned states. The study breaks down the information by credit score band and geographically.In reviewing the behavior of consumer with respect to their credit card debt, the study overlooks the benefits that consumers derive from traditional installment loans for debt consolidation. Such loans can help consumer completely pay off credit card or other debt in a stable and predictable manner.