By Katie McConnell

On May 5, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued a proposed rule, which will require providers of certain consumer financial products and services to overhaul their existing consumer-facing agreements. The proposed rule would:

1. Prohibit class action waivers in a wide range of consumer financial products agreements;
2. Require “providers” to insert language into their consumer-facing agreements to inform consumers of their right to participate in class actions; and
3. Require a provider involved in an arbitration claim to timely file with the CFPB information about the claim and how the claim was resolved.

What This Means

Prospective Effectiveness:

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By Austin Mills

Money transmission licensing (and related compliance) can be an expensive and time-consuming process. To further complicate things, it is often difficult to determine where a particular state draws the line on whether or not a particular payments-related activity constitutes money transmission.

The state of Washington’s Department of Financial Institutions (“DFI”) recently clarified one of these grey areas (“payment processing”) with an interpretive statement (the “Statement”) regarding the Washington Uniform Money Services Act (the “Act”). The statement concludes that “payment processing” is money transmission. According to the statement, payment processing includes activities where an entity “receives[s]

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