CFPB Heightens Attention to Elder Finance
The CFPB today proposed a new National “Age-Friendly” Banking Survey that would examine older adults’ banking challenges and give the Bureau greater insight into “age-friendly” account features, informing future policy work.
Trust-in-Banking Survey
Reflecting Acting Comptroller Hsu’s focus on consumer protection, fairness, and inclusion, the OCC is seeking views on what could become an annual survey of what consumers and especially bank customers think of their bank. Mr. Hsu did not lay out what he thinks they think or should think nor did he indicate any policy goals beyond the need to have the information necessary to ensure fairness, consumer service, and access.
HFSC GOP Press Crypto Rewrites
The HFSC majority memo for Tuesday’s full committee hearing on digital assets reinforces Chairman McHenry’s (R-NC) determination to press ahead with legislation redesigning the federal crypto-regulatory ecosystem. As noted, the draft bill constructed with House Ag is generally unacceptable to HFSC Democrats, ensuring a more acrimonious hearing than last week’s Ag session. The witnesses all represent the private sector and generally support the new bill.
OCC Launches Consumer-Trust Campaign
The OCC last night launched a new customer-trust initiative with a new survey proposal and RFI. In accompanying remarks, Acting Comptroller Hsu emphasized that consumer trust in banks must be earned by banks that responsibly and fairly use their market power. Bolstering this new campaign, Mr. Hsu also argues that consumer trust reduces reliance on higher-risk nonbanks and gives banks the funding with which to provide through-the-cycle community lending. For its part, the OCC is working to finalize the longstanding CRA rewrite (see FSM Report CRA32), with Mr. Hsu noting the need through these rules and the OCC’s recent fair-lending rewrite to ensure fairness and LMI-household access to national banks.