The accounts receivable management industry now has an official date for when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s debt collection rule will go into effect — Nov. 30, 2021.
The rule was published in the Federal Register on Saturday, but will go into effect one year from today. The CFPB released the first part of the rule on October 30. It has said it will release a second part, relating to time-barred debt disclosures and validation notices, in December.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Have you signed up for this week’s webinars that will discuss different provisions of the debt collection rule? A webinar is being held today, November 30, at 1pm ET to discuss the communication caps and call frequency provisions, and another is being held on Wednesday, December 2 at 1pm ET to discuss the electronic communication components of the rule. The rule series is being sponsored by TCN.]
For those who have not yet made it all the way through the 653 pages of the debt collection rule, what was published in the Federal Register might be more digestable. That clocked in at just 174 pages.
The rule covers electronic communications for the first time, provides a limited-content message that can be used when leaving voicemails, and implements a cap on the number of communication attempts and conversations that can be had with individuals, under certain circumstances.
Of course, there are a lot of things that could happen in the next 365 days that could impact what the rule looks like when it goes into effect or if it even has the chance of making it that far. If President-elect Biden opts to replace Kathleen Kraninger as director of the CFPB, a new director may come in and pull back the rule to make changes, such as what happened with the CFPB’s payday lending rule, or Congress may invoke the Congressional Review Act to keep the rule from going into effect.
