The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today released a document that is due to be published in the Federal Register on Monday rescinding and withdrawing 57 different pieces of guidance and interpretive rules that the Bureau has released, some of which date back to 2011. This includes guidance related to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and Regulation F.
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Acting Director Russell Vought cited a memo that the Bureau published last month, where it announced its new prerogatives and a de-emphasis on supervision and enforcement.
“The CFPB has issued non-binding policy guidance in myriad forms over its history,” Vought said in the document. “This guidance has taken the form of guidance documents, interpretive rules, advisory opinions, and policy statements. In many instances, this guidance has adopted interpretations that are inconsistent with the statutory text and impose compliance burdens on regulated parties outside of the strictures of notice-and-comment rulemaking. But even where the guidance might advance a permissible interpretation of the relevant statute or regulation, or afforded the public an opportunity to weigh in, it is the Bureau’s current policy to avoid issuing guidance except where necessary and where compliance burdens would be reduced rather than increased.”
Among the guidance that the CFPB is rescinding is:
- Disclosure of Consumer Complaint Narrative Data
- Debt Collection Practices (Regulation F); Deceptive and Unfair Collection of Medical
- Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Regulation F); Time-Barred Debt
- Debt Collection Practices (Regulation F); Pay-to-Pay Fees
- Consumer Financial Protection Circular 2022-07: Reasonable investigation of consumer reporting disputes
- Consumer Financial Protection Circular 2022-05: Debt collection and consumer reporting practices involving invalid nursing home debts
- Bulletin 2023-01: Unfair Billing and Collection Practices After Bankruptcy Discharges of Certain Student Loan Debts
- Bulletin 2022-01: Medical Debt Collection and Consumer Reporting Requirements in Connection with the No Surprises Act
- Bulletin 2015-07 re: in-person collection of consumer debt
- Bulletin 2014-01 re: FCRA requirement that furnishers conduct investigations
- Bulletin 2013-09 re: the FCRA’s requirement to investigate disputes and review “all relevant” information
- Bulletin 2013-07 re: prohibition of unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices in the collection of consumer debts
Vought cited the Bureau’s commitment to “issuing guidance only where that guidance is necessary” and a mission to “and would “reduce compliance burdens rather than increase them.”
“Historically, the Bureau has released guidance without adequate regard for whether it would increase or decrease compliance burdens and costs,” Vought wrote. “Our policy has changed.” Vought also cited a directive from President Trump to deregulate and streamline bureaucracy, noting that many of the CFPB’s enforcement responsibilities overlap or are duplicative of other state and federal regulators.
“To reduce this overlap and mitigate the unnecessary compliance burdens posed by duplicative investigative and enforcement authority, the Bureau is reducing its own enforcement to only those areas statutorily required,” Vought wrote. “Withdrawing guidance that might have guided or animated all of the Bureau’s enforcement efforts therefore should not adversely affect regulated parties.
See the list of what is being rescinded
