North Carolina Joins States with Regulatory Sandboxes. On October 15, 2021, the Governor of North Carolina signed into law the North Carolina Regulatory Sandbox Act of 2021. By doing so, North Carolina joins other states that have enacted regulatory sandbox acts. Depending on the scope of a particular state's regulatory sandbox act, a regulatory sandbox:

Reaction to Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals' Hunstein Decision. On April 21, 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Richard Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., held that a debt collector's disclosure of information about a consumer and his debt to a mail vendor (mail vendor disclosure) was:

(994 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. Apr. 21, 2021).) (See Legal Update, Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Holds Debt Collector Disclosure of Debt Information to a Vendor is a Communication to a Third Party Prohibited by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).)

Other federal courts, most recently the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, in Paul Quaglia v. NS193, LLC, SN Servicing Corporation, and McCalla Raymer Leibert Pierce, LLC, No. 21 C 3252 (N.D. Ill., Oct. 12, 2021), disagreed with the Eleventh Circuit on whether a mail vendor disclosure is a harm to the consumer sufficient to confer federal court standing. The Illinois district court did not rule on whether a mail vendor disclosure violates the FDCPA.

Bank 2022 Supervisory Priorities Announced. On October 15, 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its bank supervision operating plan for 2022, a guide to its supervisory priorities. Examiners will focus on OCC supervised institutions':

Push to Regulate Earned Wage Access Products. On October 12, 2021, numerous consumer protection organizations and academics submitted letters (here and here) to Rohit Chopra, the new Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), concerning earned wage access (EWA) products. The letters criticize prior CFPB determinations that EWA products were not "credit" under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) (15 U.S.C. §§ 1601 to 1667f). The letters urge the CFPB to:

Probe of Big Tech Payment Platforms. On October 21, 2021, the CFPB ordered Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Square, and Paypal to turn over information and data on their payment system business practices under Section 1022(c)(4) of the Dodd-Frank Act. The order seeks information on topics including data harvesting and monetization, access restrictions and user choice, and the companies' compliance consumer protections under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) (15 U.S.C. §§ 1693 to 1693f) and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) (15 U.S.C. §§ 6801 to 6809). A statement by CFPB Director Chopra indicated that the CFPB's effort is one of many related efforts within the Federal Reserve System and will help inform regulators and policymakers about the future of the payments system.

State AGs and Consumer Advocates Warn Federal Regulators about Rent-a-Bank Lending. On October 18 2021, various regulators and state attorneys general submitted comment letters (here and here) to the OCC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) on the regulators' Proposed Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management. These letters: