DFPI again modifies draft regulations for commercial financing disclosures

State Issues State Regulators DFPI Disclosures Commercial Finance Small Business Lending APR Merchant Cash Advance

On August 9, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) issued a second draft of proposed regulations implementing the requirements of the commercial financing disclosures required by SB 1235 (Chapter 1011, Statutes of 2018). As previously covered by InfoBytes, in 2018, California enacted SB 1235, which requires non-bank lenders and other finance companies to provide written consumer-style disclosures for certain commercial transactions, including small business loans and merchant cash advances. In July 2019, California released the first draft of the proposed regulations, and last September, California initiated the formal rulemaking process with the Office of Administrative Law (covered by InfoBytes here and here). The second modifications to the proposed regulations follow a consideration of public comments received on the initial proposed text, as well as additional comments received on modifications made to the proposed text in April. Among other things, the proposed modifications (i) amend several terms including “approved advance limit,” “approved credit limit,” and “amount financed”; (ii) clarify the definition of “at the time of extending a specific commercial financing offer”; (iii) replace the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate as one of the benchmark rate options; (iv) add several terms including “broker,” “recipient funds,” “average monthly cost,” “estimated monthly cost,” and “prepaid finance charge”; (v) provide that for disclosure purposes, “a provider shall assume that there are 30 days in every month and 360 days in a year” and specify that the annual percentage rate must be expressed to the nearest ten basis points; (vi) amend certain disclosure requirements and thresholds; (vii) clarify methods for estimating monthly sales, income, or receipt projections for sales-based financing; (viii) amend duties and requirements for financers and brokers; and (ix) clarify APR calculation requirements and tolerances and outline disclosure criteria for specifying the amount of funding a recipient will receive.

Comments on the second modifications must be received by August 24.