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CFPB adjusts asset-size exemption thresholds for Regulations C and Z
On December 18, the CFPB adjusted the asset-size exemption thresholds for Regulation C (as part of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) and Regulation Z (as part of TILA), based on a 4.1 percent increase in the average year-over-year CPI-W from November. For Regulation C, the exemption threshold increased from $54 million to $56 million. Accordingly, any financial institution with assets of $56 million or less is exempt from collecting housing-related lending data in 2024.
For Regulation Z, and certain first-lien higher-priced mortgage loans, the exemption threshold increased from $2.537 billion to $2.640 billion. Similarly, but applicable to certain insured depository institutions and insured credit unions, the exemption threshold increased from $11.374 billion to $11.835 billion.
NY state court granted decision to continue its new check cashing fee methodology
On December 7, the Supreme Court of the State of New York granted a motion to dismiss a challenge made to NYDFS’s check cashing regulation and ruled in favor of NYDFS. As previously covered in InfoBytes, the January regulation’s methodology capped the maximum percentage check cashing fee for most check types (social security, unemployment, emergency relief, veterans’ benefits) at 2.2 percent or $1, whichever is greater, and eliminated automatic fee increases based on CPI every year that had been in place since 2005.
Shortly after the rule took effect in June, several plaintiffs sued NYDFS alleging that the amended regulation was arbitrary and capricious, violated the purpose of the banking law, and was an unconstitutional property deprivation. The NY Supreme Court found that the amended regulation had a rational basis and was supported by the administrative record. Because NYDFS neither violated the NY state banking law nor the Administrative Procedures Act, the court further declared that the “amended regulation did not constitute a deprivation of property in the absence of either procedural or substantive due process.” Because the court dismissed the petition entirely in NYDFS’s favor, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction as merely “academic.”
CFPB and Fed release updated thresholds for Regulations Z and M
On November 13, the CFPB and the Fed released updated dollar thresholds for whether certain credit and lease transactions are subject to Regulation Z (Truth in Lending) and Regulation M (Consumer Leasing) requirements for 2024. The thresholds for both regulations were increased from $66,400 to $69,500, an increase of 4.6 percent. Transactions at or below the 2024 threshold of $69,500 will be “subject to the protections of the regulations.” The CFPB derives its thresholds from the June 1, 2023, report on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earnings and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). The thresholds for 2023 were previously increased at a rate of 8.8 percent, a larger increase given the rate of inflation during the previous year.