CFPB examining impact of overdraft programs

Federal Issues CFPB Consumer Finance Overdraft NSF Fees Supervision

On June 16, the CFPB published a blog post outlining recent efforts taken by the agency to collect key metrics concerning the consumer impact of certain supervised institutions’ overdraft and non-sufficient fund (NSF) practices. The Bureau asked more than 20 institutions to provide data on several “consumer-impact metrics,” including: (i) the “[t]otal annual dollar amount consumers receive in overdraft coverage compared to the amount of fees charged”; (ii) the annual amount of overdraft fees charged for each active checking account; (iii) the annual amount of NSF fees charged per active checking account; (iv) “the share of active checking accounts with more than 6 and more than 12 overdraft and/or NSF fees per year”; and (v) the “[s]hare of active checking accounts that are opted into overdraft programs for ATM and one-time debit transactions.” The Bureau stated that it plans to “use this information for further examination and review” and to provide feedback to each institution. The Bureau also plans to “share this information with other regulators,” but will not make the supervisory information public. Additionally, the Bureau noted that while it is “encouraged that some banks and credit unions are competing for consumers’ business by changing their overdraft and NSF programs,” many banks still need to improve their practices.