The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has provided its 2019 Annual Financial Acts Enforcement Report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on its enforcement and related activities regarding the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Consumer Leasing Act (CLA), and Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA).

The report on TILA, CLA, and EFTA highlights, among other things, the FTC’s enforcement actions related to automobile purchases and financing, payday lending, credit repair and debt relief, consumer electronics financing, and electronic fund transfers.

The report also addresses the FTC’s research and policy efforts related to truth in lending, including assessment and review of information from a qualitative study of consumers’ experiences in buying and financing automobiles at dealerships, and a workshop examining small business financing. The report highlights the agency’s Military Task Force, which comprises a cross-section of FTC representatives and focuses on various initiatives to assist military consumers. The report further outlines the FTC’s consumer and business education efforts on truth in lending, leasing, and electronic fund transfer issues. Download a copy here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) took action to help consumers receive relief during the pandemic more quickly from their credit card issuer. Regulation Z requires that creditors provide written disclosures to consumers for account-opening and temporary rate or fee reduction.

During the pandemic, consumers may seek to open a new account or request a temporary reduction in APR or fees for an existing account or a low-rate balance transfer. The Bureau is providing temporary and targeted flexibility for credit card issuers regarding electronic provision of certain disclosures required to be in writing during this pandemic.

Download the CFPB release here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) has issued FAQs explaining whether failure to deliver remittance transfer funds to the designated recipient by the disclosed date of availability due to certain government-mandated closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is an error under the Remittance Rule. The FAQs also include illustrative examples.

You can access the FAQs here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) issued a report analyzing the complaints received during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bulletin shows that mortgage and credit card complaints top the list of complaints the Bureau has received that mention coronavirus or related terms. In April and May, the Bureau received historically higher complaints, however, complaints mentioning COVID-related terms amounted to a total of 4,500 complaints during those two months.

Mortgage and credit card complaints top the list for complaints that mention coronavirus terms, with 22 percent and 19 percent of complaints, respectively. Among mortgage complaints that mention coronavirus keywords, 59 percent of consumers identified struggling to pay the mortgage as the issue. For credit card complaints, 19 percent of consumers identified a problem with purchase shown or statement as the issue.

The Bureau also received its highest complaint volumes in its history in March and April at 36,700 and 42,500, respectively. In 2019, the monthly average for complaints was 29,000. The bulletin attributes the higher numbers to factors such as market conditions and more public awareness of the complaint system.

The full complaints database is available here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) today released a statement and FAQs outlining the responsibility of certain financial firms during the pandemic. In the statement, the Bureau outlines the billing error responsibilities of credit card issuers and other open-end non-home secured creditors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, the Bureau encourages financial firms to continue to provide the kind of assistance to their communities that many have been providing, such as waiving fees, lowering minimum-balance requirements, and implementing changes in account terms that benefit consumers.

In order to help consumers, the Bureau released two FAQ documents. First, the FAQs remind providers of checking, savings, or prepaid accounts that they can offer consumers immediate relief by changing account terms without advance notice where the change in terms is clearly favorable to the consumer. For example, in light of the Federal Reserve Board’s April 2020 interim final rule deleting the six-per-month transfer limit on savings accounts, an institution may eliminate transfer fees on savings accounts without providing advance notice. Second, the Bureau issued FAQs focusing on existing regulatory flexibilities for open-end credit (that is not home-secured) that may be useful for assisting customers. For example, there is no advance notice requirement should a creditor choose to extend a credit card account’s grace period. Read more here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) , and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) partnered to launch a new mortgage and housing assistance website to help homeowners and renters during the coronavirus pandemic.

The new unified Mortgage and Housing Assistance site is available here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued a final rule amending the Remittance Transfer Rule. In light of the expiration of a statutory exception in July 2020, the amendments allow banks and credit unions to provide estimates of certain fees and the exchange rates related to remittance transfers if they meet certain conditions. The final rule also increases the threshold that determines whether an entity is subject to the Remittance Transfer Rule.

The final rule is available here.

Hub Security, a startup that offers military-grade cybersecurity solutions for Fintech, cloud, blockchain, and data storage in general, closed a $5 million Series A funding round led by AXA Ventures. Details of the investment were not announced.

Hub Security’s miniHSM is said to be the first of its kind to offer a pocket-sized HSM solution, which provides an “ultra-secure HSM-to-HSM communication layer” built for cloud, banking, healthcare, and government enterprises with scalable, “air-tight security” that can support any cloud-based or digital asset.

HUB Security utilizes military-grade cybersecurity tactics for its HSM architecture that is designed for FIPS140-2 Level 4 protection (In advanced stage process); the highest protection level available for mobile cryptographic security solutions on the market to date. Read more here.

CoinDesk released the CoinDesk 50 list, which provides its selection of the most innovative, consequential and viable projects in the blockchain space. Read more here.

Levey will be tasked with shepherding the Facebook-led Libra stablecoin project through a global regulatory process.

Levey has been chief legal officer at HSBC since 2012. Before that, he served as the first Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence during the Bush and Obama Administrations, helping to set policy on combating illicit finance. Read more here.

After launching a $300M crypto fund two years ago, Andreessen Horowitz closed on a larger fund now, estimated at $515M. This fund will focus on crytocurrency and blockchain companies. Read more here.

Stripe announced that it has secured $600 million in new funding, the largest round to date for a US-based online payments startup. The financing comes from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Sequoia, and values Stripe at an estimated $36 billion. The new funding is an extension of the company's Series G round, which initially raised $250 million in September.

Stripe's expanding war chest caps a flurry of fundraising from payment specialists including Tradeshift, AvidXchange and HighRadius, all of which have raised mega-deals this year, according to PitchBook data. AvidXchange, which offers an automation platform to process invoices and payments, raised $260 million in a round led by TPG Sixth Street Partners in January, bringing its total capital raised to over $830 million. Stripe has now raised more than $1 billion in private financing. Read more here.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued guidance to address certain stakeholder questions and concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on the mortgage origination process. The Bureau’s latest COVID-19 guidance addresses, among other things, the TRID Rule’s 3-day waiting period requirements, Regulation Z’s consumer recession rights and the ECOA and Regulation B’s appraisal and written valuation requirements in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more here.

A mortgage servicer typically collects and processes loan payments on behalf of the owner of the mortgage note, conducts escrow-related processes, and handles loss mitigation, as appropriate. Servicing transfers are common and may occur in several ways. The mortgage owner may sell the rights to service the loan, the owner of the loan may hire a vendor – typically called a sub-servicer to take on the servicing duties – or the entity that owns the loan may outright sell the mortgage loan as an asset.

As consumers do not have a choice with respect to the transfer of servicing, compliance with regulatory requirements is especially important in risk mitigation and preventing consumer harm. The CFPB provides a number of examples of practices that servicers may consider as contributing to compliance.

Read more here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dropil, Inc. and its three California-based founders with defrauding investors in an initial coin offering (ICO) that raised more than $1.8 million from thousands of investors.

Read more here.