The WSJ report is here. As for the impact on discriminatory lending, see Adam Levitin writing at Credit Slips. It remains unclear how the House will respond to the bill.
by Jeff Sovern Mick Mulvaney has now led the CFPB for three and a half months and during that period, has been subject to attacks, including on our blog. Naturally, his defenders are stepping up. For example, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and served on […]
by Jeff Sovern Politico's Morning Money newsletter reports: BANKERS NOT AS WORRIED BY REGS — At the Consumer Bankers Assoc. annual conference, CBA Live, attendees were asked about their top worries. The regulatory environment was tops from 2012-2016. On Monday it barely cracked four percent. Which of course raises a question about why Congress is working on […]
"Buried within Senate legislation to roll back restraints on banks is a provision that would exempt an estimated 85 percent of US banks and credit unions from public reporting requirements, raising fears that discriminatory practices by lenders could go undetected. The data that would be exempt from reporting include the financial information of borrowers and loan […]
by Jeff Sovern Kevin Wack in The American Banker has a report headlined Wells was tipped off to government probe by OCC, watchdog says. And yet, Mick Mulvaney wants the CFPB to take a backseat to the OCC when it comes to supervision.
Giuseppe Dari‐Mattiacci of Amsterdam Law School; Amsterdam Business School; and the Tinbergen Institute and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU have written Learning in Standard Form Contracts: Theory and Evidence. Here is the abstract: We explore learning and change in standard form contracts. We hypothesize that drafters (sellers) are more likely to revise the terms they offer when […]
by Jeff Sovern Level Playing Field is reporting that companies include in their arbitration clauses provisions that AAA, their arbitration service, has informed them have to be waived, meaning AAA won't enforce them. The clauses in question may deter consumers, who don't know that they won't be enforced, from bringing the arbitration at all. For […]
Taylor A. Begley of Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis and Amiyatosh Purnanandam of Ross School of Business, University of Michigan have written Color and Credit: Race, Regulation, and the Quality of Financial Services. Here is the abstract: The incidence of mis-selling, fraud, and poor customer service by retail banks is significantly higher in markets […]
Today, the National Consumer Law Center released an updated version of its very helpful and informative 50-state UDAP survey. The page with links to the full report, executive summary, key recommendations, maps, charts, and appendices is available here. The press release is available here. Since the last survey, which was conducted in 2009, NCLC finds […]
The New York Times carried a story this weekend about a disturbing lawsuit that will be argued in the California Court of Appeal later this month. Olivia de Havilland sued FX for running the docudrama “Feud,” a fictionalized account of the feud between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis; a character portraying deHavilland has a modest […]

