Sep 13 2021, 9:15 PMSep 13 2021, 11:03 PMSeptember 13 2021, 9:15 PMSeptember 13 2021, 11:03 PM(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden plans to nominate Georgetown University law professor Alvaro Bedoya to be a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter.

(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden plans to nominate Georgetown University law professor Alvaro Bedoya to be a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Bedoya, a privacy law expert who leads the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown’s law school, would replace FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, who has been nominated to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

Bedoya would bolster the commission’s expertise in privacy and data security, which is increasingly becoming one of its high-profile responsibilities in addition to antitrust enforcement. The agency in 2019 fined Facebook Inc. a record $5 billion for privacy violations in a settlement that the FTC’s two Democratic commissioners at the time said didn’t go far enough to protect consumers.

Privacy advocates cheered the news of Bedoya’s nomination. Tech policy organization Public Knowledge called him a “fierce advocate for consumer privacy” and applauded his work showing that surveillance and facial-recognition technology can have disparate impacts on people of color. Alvaro was one of the authors of a 2016 report on the use of facial-recognition technology by police departments and the risks posed to privacy and civil liberties.

“He’s blazed a trail in holding big tech accountable and has spent his career fighting on behalf of the powerless, particularly those in immigrant communities,” Charlotte Slaiman, Public Knowledge’s competition policy director, said in a statement.

Before joining Georgetown, Alvaro was the chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s privacy subcommittee, where he worked on matters involving mobile location privacy and biometrics and helped draft legislation, according to a biography on the school’s website.

Chopra is still awaiting Senate confirmation after his nomination moved out of the Senate Banking Committee in March on a split, party-line vote. 

Axios previously reported on Biden’s intent to nominate Bedoya.

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His confirmation would further bolster expectations about the agency’s scrutiny of an industry led by trillion-dollar companies with unprecedented influence over how people live, work and speak.

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Biden’s announcement is expected Monday afternoon. Bedoya and the White House declined to comment.

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Born in Peru, Bedoya has worked to reframe the debate around emerging surveillance technology from its technical abilities to its most devastating impacts, particularly on immigrants and people of color.

As a staffer for former senator Al Franken (D-Minn.), Bedoya became the first chief counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, which since 2011 has held hearings on location tracking and the opacity of National Security Agency surveillance.

He has been praised on Capitol Hill for his bipartisan approach to privacy as a human right, and his nomination to Silicon Valley’s top watchdog could presage a more aggressive approach to the private sector, particularly in issues of data protection.

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Noah Phillips, who worked with Bedoya in the Senate and was nominated by Trump as an FTC commissioner in 2018, said he has not always agreed with Bedoya but found him to be “without fail as bright and thoughtful a person as you could find.”

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“I don’t think of him as a person who just gets up and rants about entities he doesn’t like,” Phillips said. He “thinks about the impacts of practices that concern him, engages with people who have views about those practices, and helps maps out a way forward.”

Bedoya’s nomination comes as Biden’s FTC chair, Lina Khan, has faced calls from both Democrats and Republicans to forcefully police the tech giants’ most dominant players, including Amazon and Facebook.

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Biden has also elevated people who have scrutinized tech’s impact on civil rights in other agencies. Vanita Gupta, a civil rights leader who criticized Facebook, earlier this year became associate attorney general at the Department of Justice.

Bedoya’s work could also help the agency further expand its ambitions in safeguarding Americans’ privacy online. House Democrats last week proposed a $1 billion boost of the FTC’s budget to help launch a division to patrol for privacy violations and online abuse.

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It is unclear when Bedoya’s confirmation hearings will be scheduled, though it will likely take months. He would replace FTC commissioner Rohit Chopra, who Biden nominated to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but is still awaiting confirmation.

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In the Senate, Bedoya was a key driver of privacy and surveillance as public-interest issues, helping draft legislation and conduct oversight hearings into tech-company practices. He was known for organizing informal Thursday night “pizza and privacy” gatherings, attracting House and Senate staffers from across the aisle.

“He’s never seen privacy as a left or right issue, but as a core civil protection and civil rights concern in a way that can pull together both sides,” said Jeff Zubricki, a longtime Senate staffer who worked with Bedoya and now leads government relations for the online marketplace Etsy. “There’s a whole generation of staffers he’s influenced that are still up there today.”

Later, as a director of Georgetown’s privacy center, Bedoya pushed authoritative studies that would become a centerpiece of Congressional interest and help fuel political movements across the country.

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Since 2016, when Bedoya and the researchers Clare Garvie and Jonathan Frankle wrote how unregulated police use of facial recognition had forced Americans into a “perpetual lineup,” more than a dozen states and cities have passed laws banning or restricting its public use.

In recent months, he has been a vocal critic of the digital systems used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to find and track immigrants in the United States, writing columns criticizing the “technology behind ICE’s brutality.”

Consumer and civil rights advocates also celebrated the Bedoya pick. Wade Henderson, the interim president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the country’s biggest civil rights umbrella group, said in a statement that he urged the Senate to quickly confirm his nomination.

“An influential scholar focused on the principle that privacy is a civil right, Professor Bedoya is exactly the leader our country needs right now,” Henderson said.

Cat Zakrzewski and Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.

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If the adage about closed doors and opened windows ever applied to a bank — even on outlook alone — that bank might be Wells Fargo.
As the San Francisco-based lender announced Thursday that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had handed down a fresh penalty — $250 million for failing to develop a program for mortgage borrowers to avoid losing their homes — Wells Fargo also took a moment to acknowledge that another regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), had let a separate consent order against the bank expire.

“Sometimes — as is the case today — we will reach a positive milestone on one set of issues and be reminded that we need to redouble our focus on another,” CEO Charlie Scharf said in a statement. “That will not stop us from getting to where everyone expects us to be, and where we expect ourselves to be.”
The OCC’s consent order is the first to be opened against the bank during the Scharf era, Bloomberg reported. Wells Fargo faced 12 enforcement actions when he took the helm in October 2019, and the bank had winnowed that to 10 by the start of 2021.
In his first earnings call as Wells’ CEO, Scharf said his primary focus had been “advancing our required regulatory work with a different sense of urgency and resolve.” Wells’ actions, at least in home lending, weren’t urgent enough for the OCC, it could be speculated. Last week’s penalty dings the bank for failing to make progress on a 2018 consent order — specifically, for failing to “detect, prevent and quantify inaccurate loan modification decisions” — in a timely manner.
Along with the penalty, the OCC last week barred Wells Fargo from acquiring certain third-party residential mortgage servicing and ordered the bank to ensure harmed borrowers aren’t transferred out of its loan-servicing portfolio until they’re given remediation.
“Wells Fargo has not met the requirements of the OCC’s 2018 action against the bank,” Acting Comptroller Michael Hsu said in a Thursday press release. “This is unacceptable.”
The April 2018 consent order came with a $1 billion penalty for, among other practices, improperly charging customers fees for mortgage interest rate locks even if Wells Fargo’s actions had resulted in the loan failing to close in the specified time frame, American Banker reported.
Wells Fargo disclosed three months later that it had found a calculation error that caused 625 customers to be incorrectly denied loan modifications, including about 400 who lost their homes. At the time, the bank said the issue was corrected in October 2015. A subsequent securities filing revised that assessment, indicating that more customers were affected and the errors continued through April 2018.
Last week’s OCC actions weren’t entirely unexpected. Bloomberg reported earlier that Wells could face new sanctions over the pace at which it was complying with some consent orders.

“Our work to build the right foundation for a company of our size and complexity will not follow a straight line,” Scharf said. “We are managing multiple issues concurrently, and progress will come alongside setbacks. That said, we believe we’re making significant progress, the work required is clear, and I remain confident in our ability to complete it.”
The order the CFPB allowed to expire last week stemmed from Wells Fargo’s 2016 fake-accounts scandal, which appears to have its own door-window continuum. The long-running scandal will get a spotlight in court this week, as trials for three former Wells Fargo executives — former Chief Auditor David Julian, former Executive Audit Director Paul McLinko and former community bank group risk officer Claudia Russ Anderson — are slated to begin Monday.
The OCC is seeking penalties of $10 million from Russ Anderson, $7 million from Julian and $1.5 million from McLinko, American Banker reported this month. The agency alleges the three executives failed to perform their duties and responsibilities adequately, contributing to systemic issues at the bank.
OCC examiners charged the former executives in January 2020, when it also announced a settlement with ex-Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who paid a $17.5 million penalty and is barred from the banking industry. Stumpf and fellow former Wells CEO Tim Sloan are among a list of potential witnesses for Monday’s trial.
Lawyers for the defendants are trying to focus attention on flaws in the OCC’s supervision. The OCC missed several opportunities to reel in the bank’s sales-related misconduct, according to a government watchdog report published last September.
“According to OCC examiners, historically, Wells Fargo had a solid reputation,” the report said.
Scharf, in Thursday’s press release, continued his conciliatory tone regarding penalties radiating from the 2016 scandal. 
“We have done substantial work designed to ensure that the conduct at the core of the consent order — which was reprehensible and wholly inconsistent with the values on which this company was built — will not recur,” he said.

Incidentally, the bank last week named a new executive, Ann Thorn, to lead its home lending servicing group. The move, Wells Fargo said, is unrelated to last week’s mortgage-related penalty. Thorn is replacing Jeff Smith, who announced his retirement in January.

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The buyer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday is proposing new laws to protect consumers from predatory financing techniques that the CFPB’s top regulator call
Americans are being “create to fail” by payday and auto-title loan providers, Richard Cordray, the manager of this customer Financial Protection Bureau, informs NPR.

“just how the products are structured, it is rather hard to repay the mortgage, and for that reason people become borrowing over repeatedly and having to pay much more in charges and interest than they borrowed when you look at the beginning,” Cordray claims.
Beneath the proposed guideline, so-called “payday,” “auto-title” as well as other short-term loan providers could be needed to figure out that individuals they loan cash to could make the re re re payments and charges if they come due whilst still being meet basic cost of living and major obligations.
With rates of interest of 300 % and greater, these loan providers have actually dropped under greater scrutiny at both their state and federal degree. In March of a year ago, President Obama stated he supported tougher laws for payday loan providers who revenue by charging you borrowers interest that is super-high. “If you are making that gain trapping hard-working People in america into a vicious period of financial obligation, you have got to locate a business that is new,” the president stated.
Pay Day Loans: A assisting Hand Or Predatory Quicksand?
Suppose a low-wage worker’s car stops working. She’s got to make it to work and simply simply just take her young ones to college. But she’s got bad credit, no bank cards with no solution to pay money for the automobile fix. a lender that is payday in place say, “no issue. We’ll supply you with the cash you’ll need at this time getting your vehicle fixed, and I am given by you your money quantity, when you obtain compensated in 2 days We’ll withdraw the income your debt me personally from your own bank account.”

The industry claims these loans are essential to assist working People in america through a money squeeze and that the brand new laws are unwarranted. “The CFPB’s proposed guideline presents an astounding blow to customers since it will take off use of credit for an incredible number of People in america whom utilize small-dollar loans to handle a budget shortfall or unanticipated cost,” claims Dennis Shaul, CEO for the payday financing industry team, the Community Financial Services Association.
But regulators state the nagging issue is that the terms are incredibly onerous that numerous borrowers can not manage to spend the loans as well as continue to have sufficient for his or her rent as well as other basics. And they also wind up taking out fully another loan, after which another loan from then on, over repeatedly for months or often years, sinking much much deeper into a quagmire.
Cordray claims customers think these are titlemax loan typically engaging in an one-time loan but they have “caught” by this period. He states it really is like “getting in a taxi merely to drive across town and also you end up in cross-country journey that may be ruinously high priced.”
The CFPB learned the lending that is payday before crafting the proposed guideline and found that four away from five among these single-payment loans are re-borrowed within 30 days. Within the instance of auto-title loans where borrowers place their cars up as collateral, one out of five borrowers eventually ends up having trucks and cars seized by the lending company for failure to settle.
Customer Groups Applaud The Rule But Cautious With Loopholes
Watchdog groups for many years have already been critical of payday lenders. “The concept through the final twenty years because this industry began is the fact that this has been remarkably good at evading attempts at legislation and making use of an extremely high-powered lobbying device to push for loopholes,” states Mike Calhoun, the president of this Center for Responsible Lending.
Calhoun states he supports the proposed rule through the CFPB, but he is nevertheless worried the industry will see a real method to your workplace around it.
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Zippyloan just isn’t an institution that is financial loan provider, loan broker, or a real estate agent of a lender or loan broker. Zippyloan will not make loans, just isn’t active in the loan approval procedure, and it is maybe maybe maybe perhaps not involved with a lender’s decision-making procedure by any means. Zippyloan is a free of charge, no responsibility service, that introduces borrowers that are potential potential loan providers whom provide unsecured loans. Zippyloan just provides a way for people searching for signature loans to perhaps relate to loan providers who is able to offer those loans. To allow Zippyloan to facilitate such an association, a prospective debtor is needed to offer specific information to allow the lenders that Zippyloan works together to figure out whether or not they may be interested or in a position to provide cash up to a potential debtor. Zippyloan gets settlement through the loan providers whom, according to their requirements, determine that a borrower that is potential to fulfill their financing requirements (a “Lead” or “Leads”).
Lenders whom compensate Zippyloan for guides may request that introductions and Leads be centered on information supplied by potential borrowers including social protection quantity, target, telephone number, work history, banking account information etc. But, the given information you distribute with this internet site just isn’t a software. It really is information needed because of lenders we assist to be able to see whether there’s a potential debtor and a loan provider. Zippyloan will not accept loan requests, will not gather loan requests, will not offer loan requests, and will not help in the mortgage application procedure by any means. Potential borrowers will have to fill away a software with any loan providers these are generally linked to through this amazing site. Potential loan providers may confirm your provided information by having a true wide range of separate verification organizations including although not limited by: CLVerify, Teletrack, or Accurint. Potential loan providers may require extra information included in their application processes. Zippyloan cannot and will not guarantee that the lender that is prospective accept that loan in a quantity if not that a potential loan provider will accept you for a financial loan. Qualifying for last approval for a unsecured Loan is determined by numerous facets including, not limited by: income amounts, credit and state of residence not absolutely all loan providers will accept financing when it comes to amount that is full. Not totally all loan providers will accept that loan as much as $15,000. All needs are at the mercy of credit approval because of the loan provider in addition to precise regards to your loan will be determined and presented for your requirements by the loan provider. Each loan provider makes use of their policies that are own figure out their terms.

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We all experience unexpected expenses such as medical bills, needing a new roof, and car repairs. Sometimes unexpected expenses hit all at once, or we haven’t put away enough in our rainy-day fund. This is where Overdraft (OD) programs come into play. Courtesy overdraft is a service offered with a deposit account to provide liquidity to a bank customer when their balance has insufficient funds to cover incoming payments from a debit card, ATM, check or an ACH (Automated Clearing House) payment. In the United States, a customer must opt-in to this service for debit and ATM card transactions (required by the 2010 update to Regulation E) and a flat fee is applied per the terms and conditions of the program offered by the bank.With the change in the regulatory climate, overdraft programs have been drawing scrutiny, but the need remains for consumers. The concept of providing customers with an extension of funds is not going away, and the overdraft programs continue to evolve.The use of overdraft services has been extensively researched by organizations such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Researchers often cite the negative financial impact of fee-based overdraft on the most financially fragile consumers. Over the past few years, the fees generated, and usage of overdraft has been an ongoing debate, with concerns raised by both policy leaders in Congress as well as consumer advocacy organizations. Recently, a growing number of banking institutions have introduced changes to their overdraft programs including no longer charging fees to alternative ways to assist customers with their short-term cashflow needs.In this first of two blog posts, I had an opportunity to chat with David Pommerehn, the General Counsel and Senior Vice President at the Consumer Bankers Association (CBA), an expert on the state of overdraft in the banking industry. Our discussion explored the shifting regulatory landscape, banks’ latest overdraft program changes, and what’s next with regulations on overdraft. My second blog post will focus on solutions for banks to better serve their customers who need short-term liquidity.Let’s begin with our discussion with CBA’s David Pommerehn.FICO: Could you briefly explain the existing state of overdraft regulations (opt-in treatment of debit card/ATM vs. check/ACH)?Mr. Pommerehn: Overdraft regulations have remained relatively unchanged since the opt-in provisions (Reg E) were implemented in 2010. New leadership at the CFPB has indicated that OD is on the agenda for a possible rulemaking. What that will look like, we do not know, but we do know the CFPB has been collecting data on OD practices for years and many of their concerns center around ‘chronic users’ (those who overdraft 10 or more times a year) and the process of opt in as it pertains to consumer disclosure and transparency. In 2014, the Bureau moved to recategorize overdraft on prepaid cards as a ‘credit feature’ under regulation Z. However, we do not believe that is the direction for deposit account overdraft.There are numerous enforcement actions under way as well as litigation related to overdraft. All this is in addition to a legislative proposal by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) that would severely curtail overdraft practices.FICO: Is there consensus within the industry that the existing regulations are sufficient?Mr. Pommerehn: Yes, we believe that regulation E opt-in has been sufficient in giving consumers the choice to use overdraft or not. Average opt-in rates hover around 20% and we believe consumers need to make their own informed choices. Additionally, there are few viable options currently in the market that provide consumers with a financial cushion for emergencies. Overdraft becomes a valuable service for those who find themselves in need of emergency funds.FICO: There is a lot of focus on the cost of overdraft coverage. Overdraft protection provides a benefit to the bank customers and the merchants they are paying but does comes with a risk that a customer cannot address their balance shortfall. In your opinion, is there an appreciation of the risks for banks in extending payment when insufficient funds exist?Mr. Pommerehn: Of course. Debt cycles and charge offed accounts are always a concern. Banks have implemented many ways for consumers to avoid overdraft, including de minimis exemptions, grace periods, low balance and OD alerts, and accounts that do not maintain the ability to overdraft at all. For those that cannot sufficiently address a shortfall, there should be a discussion with their account provider and an examination of possible alternatives.FICO: Recently, a number of banks (led by Ally, PNC, TD and others) are reworking their overdraft strategies. What is driving this wave of changes? Do you expect other banks to implement similar changes even if this results in lower generated revenue?Mr. Pommerehn: The market is responding to consumer needs. We believe depositories will continue to innovate in this space, giving consumers more flexibility while retaining options for those that decide to utilize them.FICO: Looking into your crystal ball, what, if any, policy changes do you expect regarding overdraft in the next year?Mr. Pommerehn: It’s hard to say. Again, many changes from the account providers themselves, will certainly happen, which may mitigate much of the desire to regulate/legislate in this space. We expect the CFPB to continue its review of the service and a proposal could be made as early as the first half of 2022. What that may look like is unknown, but possible ‘solutions’ could be wide ranging.Since our conversation, more and more banks have made statements on possible new services or changes to fees within the overdraft service category. In August of 2021 Jamie Dimon stated ‘A lot of competitors are making changes and we may be a day late and a dollar slow, but if it’s appropriate, we’re going to make a bunch of changes.’ Fintech offerings such as Chime’s ‘SpotMe’ have illustrated a few possibilities to provide a short-term, small dollar liquidity service for consumers.The push for new short-term liquidity solutions is definitely in full gear and I look forward to sharing my insights and suggestions on this important topic in my next post.AttachmentsOriginal documentPermalinkDisclaimerFair Isaac Corporation published this content on 13 September 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 13 September 2021 14:41:07 UTC.

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