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In lieu of a federal law regulating artificial intelligence, state policymakers have introduced nearly 700 pieces of AI legislation in 2024, signaling an impending wave of legislation to come in 2025. A new report says this trajectory follows the pattern of consumer data privacy laws that were similarly introduced en masse over the last several years.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued guidance to protect workers from unchecked digital tracking and opaque decision-making systems. The guidance warns that companies using third-party consumer reports — including background dossiers and surveillance-based, “black box” AI or algorithmic scores about their workers — must follow Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) rules.

Today’s podcast, which repurposes a recent webinar, is the conclusion of a two-part examination of the CFPB’s use of a proposed interpretive rule, rather than a legislative rule, to expand regulatory requirements for earned wage access (EWA) products. Part One, which was released last week, focused on the CFPB’s use of an interpretive rule to expand regulatory requirements for buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) products.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis is joined by Troutman Pepper Partner David Anthony and Rami Haddad, deputy general counsel for Compliance, Litigation, and Privacy at PRA Group. The discussion dives into a variety of pressing issues in the consumer finance sector and covers current litigation trends, the impact of the Supreme Court's overruling of Chevron in the Loper Bright case, and the CFPB's new nonbank registry rule.

On October 11, the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation’s (DFPI) proposed regulations on direct-to-consumer (i.e., non-employer offered) earned wage access (EWA) products. This approval marks the culmination of a lengthy regulatory process that began in March 2023 and involved multiple rounds of modifications and public comments. The regulations also impose requirements on debt settlement companies and education financing providers. It will become effective on February 15, 2025.