Media Coverage
Source: Transaction World Magazine
Media Coverage
02.01.13
The election has been over for months and in addition to four more years with President Obama at the helm, America has a new Congress and a new landscape. What does this all mean for the payments industry?
Craig Saperstein, an associate in Pillsbury’s public policy practice in Washington, D.C., commented that despite public discontent with the performance of the federal government, the big surprise of the 2012 general election is that Americans essentially voted for the status quo in Washington.
Yet, the current economic climate can provide mixed signals as to how the payments industry will perform. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established largely in response to charges that there was insufficient oversight of financial markets that directly affect consumers.
“Although the CFPB has frequently been responsive to concerns shared with it by card issuers over its first year-and-a-half in operation, participants in the payments industry should continue to closely monitor CFPB regulatory and supervisory action,” he said. “CFPB officials have raised the possibility that the Bureau could adopt new regulations pertaining to GPR prepaid cards (following last year’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking) and have also indicated that they will set standards to determine which large non-bank participants in prepaid and money services business markets will be subject to examination. Moreover, CFPB is likely to continue to undertake enforcement action against companies accused of misleading or otherwise harming consumers.”
“Payments providers should understand that, apart from its ability to enforce specific laws like TILA, EFTA and others, CFPB has significant latitude to investigate companies engaged in purported ‘unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices,’ commonly known as UDAAP… Indeed, in the second half of 2012, several payment networks settled enforcement actions with CFPB related to both statutory and UDAAP violations; these enforcement actions will likely provide clues as to how the Bureau plans to exercise its supervisory and enforcement powers.”
“Payment providers should also pay close attention to congressional activity related to mobile payments regulation,” Saperstein added.