InfoBytes Blog
CFPB, New York sue remittance provider
On April 21, the CFPB and New York attorney general filed a complaint against a remittance provider (defendant) for allegedly violating the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and its implementing Regulation E and the Remittance Rule (the Rule) and the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), among various consumer financial protection laws. The Bureau’s announcement called the defendant a “repeat offender” citing that in 2018, the FTC filed a motion for compensatory relief and modified order for permanent injunction against the defendant, which alleged that it failed to adopt and implement a comprehensive fraud prevention program mandated by the 2009 order (covered by InfoBytes here). The CFPB complaint alleges that from October 2018 through 2022, the defendant: (i) violated the Remittance Rule requirements by repeatedly failing “to provide fund availability dates that were accurate, when the Rule required such accuracy”; (ii) “repeatedly ignored the Rule’s error-resolution requirements when addressing notices of error from consumers in New York, including in this district, and elsewhere;” and (iii) failed to establish policies and procedures designed to ensure compliance with money-transferring laws, in violation of Regulation E. The complaint further noted that the defendant’s “own assessments of consumers’ complaints showed that the dates Defendants disclosed to consumers, repeatedly, were wrong,” and that the defendant “found multiple delays in making funds available to designated recipients, including delays that constituted errors under the Rule,” among other things. Finally, the Bureau claims that the defendant violated the CFPA “by failing to make remittance transfers timely available to designated recipients or to make refunds timely available to senders.” The Bureau’s complaint seeks consumer restitution, disgorgement, injunctive relief, and civil money penalties. According to a statement released by CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, "the remittance market is ripe for reinvention, and the CFPB will be examining ways to increase competition and innovation for the benefit of both families and honest businesses, while also avoiding creating a new set of harms."