Paycheck Loans
Salary check loanIn the absence of an adequate actuarial assessment to evaluate a consumer's capacity to pay back, this constitutes an "abusive and unjust practice". "The industrial players have about 21 month from the date of publishing the rule in the Federal Register to adhere to it. However, as outlined herein, the rule's field of application is less extensive than anticipated, but its demands pose significant issues and risk to stakeholders.
Concerning'covered short-term loans'[13] and'covered longer-term balloon payment loans'[14], the rule requires creditors to make an appropriate decision as to whether the client is in a position to pay back the loans before granting them. This provision involves checking a consumer's montly disposable incomes, montly debts and house prices through dependable recordings or certain report schemes, while at the same time predicting the consumer's fundamental cost of life.
Despite wide-ranging demands on the information that a creditor needs to evaluate and review in order to establish a consumer's repayment capacity, the rule gives little indication of how operators can carry out such an individualised and factual assessment of this type of credit in a practical and meaningful way, which is usually needed by customers in a relatively brief period of time.
Missing measures by Congress to obstruct it, the rule will enter into force 21 month after its publication in the Federal Register. Industrial players now face the difficult challenge of drafting guidelines and processes to enforce reinsurance schemes that comply with the rule's binding but blurred repayment rules while preserving economic and operational sustainability for creditors and end-users.
The big issue and one that is likely to cause significant litigation once creditors start complying with the rules is whether secured loans can reasonably be tendered for repayment in accordance with the capability assessment rule. In particular, neither the rule itself nor the Consumer Protection Act (which forbids "abusive" and "unfair" acts) provides for a consumer right of recourse in the form of a consumer civil suit for failing to carry out an appropriate assessment of recoverability.
Rather, the largest possible exposure to possible liabilities for sector operators in breach of the rule is likely to come from two sources: CFPB enforcement measures; and (2) Public Defamation and Misleading Action and Practice ("UDAP") Claim that may be filed by a consumer and/or prosecutor.
Whilst the possible extent of liabilities is currently unknown, it is reasonably expected that imaginative consumers' advocates will find ways to assert personal and presumed classes actions against business operators arising from allegedly inadequate practice and methods for assessing recoverability.