Back in early December the OCC announced their intention to create a national Fintech Charter. At the time they announced a...
Last week I was in Washington DC to attend the third annual Online Lending Policy Summit. This is the annual...
Opposition to the OCC's fintech charter continues with a new lawsuit filed by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors which says the OCC does not have the legal authority to issue the fintech charter that it has proposed; the lawsuit says the OCC will need "specific congressional approval" for the charter and that nondepository companies are not considered to be engaged in the business of banking; preemption of state consumer protection laws has evoked strong opposition to the OCC's fintech charter and the lawsuit by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors is the first court action taken by an opposing party; the OCC's financial inclusion provisions, lack of clarity on state mandated requirements such as interest rate caps, default rate limitations and underwriting standards, and lack of detail on business factors including capital requirements and other balance sheet measures have caused decreasing support for the charter overall. Source
Financial inclusion is a factor considered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in all of its banking charters; American Banker discusses how the fintech charter's financial inclusion provisions compare to the Community Reinvestment Act requirements for banks; the new fintech charter would require fintechs to detail how they plan to promote financial inclusion with accountability from the OCC for those goals and more direct OCC enforcement actions for fintech companies. Source
Happy New Year everyone. As I do every year at this time I make a few predictions for the year...
The new head of the OCC, Joseph Otting, reaffirms the agency’s support of the fintech charter. Source
Otting said Wednesday to reporters that no firms considering the OCC Fintech Charter have mentioned concerns about the Fed standing...
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The OCC Fintech Charter was formally proposed back in December 2016. Along with many other organizations we responded to their...
Due to the regulatory environment in the US digital banking startups have opted to partner with banks to offer banking...
First, we had Varo. Then came Square. More recently SoFi, then Figure, now Oportun is joining the party. Let’s not...