Tipton Responds to CFPB's Final Prepaid Accounts Rule

Statement

Congressman Scott Tipton (CO-03) issued the following statement after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published its final regulations for prepaid accounts:

"After the CFPB issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Prepaid Accounts last year, U.S. Sen. Michael Rounds (R-SD) and I led a letter with 42 of our colleagues to CFPB Director Richard Cordray outlining our concerns that the proposed rule would impose overly burdensome restrictions on financial institutions and restrict important access to prepaid account products for consumers. We urged the CFPB to address four areas of the rule: the overly broad definition of "prepaid account," confusing pre-acquisition fee disclosures, the proposed implementation deadline, and subjecting overdrafts to Regulation Z.

"I am extremely disappointed to see that the CFPB did not take our concerns seriously, but instead, has issued a rule that will make it harder for the people who need prepaid account products to access them. The final regulation is yet another example of the harmful one-size-fits-all regulatory approach we have seen from this Administration, and it's the families who are underserved or underbanked who will suffer the most."

The final CFPB rule would also be applied to products outside of the prepaid products sphere, such as mobile wallets and person to person transfers. It requires consumers to complete two separate pre-acquisition fee disclosures, subjects overdrafts to Regulation Z, and gives prepaid account product providers only one-year to come into compliance.

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