Many colleges directly offer financial products to students and market other products that are offered by third-party financial service providers. When colleges do this, students trust and rely on their schools’ offering or marketing of these products as financial advice and may be influenced by what they could perceive as their endorsement to sign up for financial products and services that are more expensive than other available options. However, colleges may also have independent interests from those of their students and may not face competitive pressure to lower fees or provide low-cost products.
One of the key lessons of the DSIB failures was that regulators had hamstrung themselves in the years prior and had not used legal authorities to protect the public as contemplated by federal law. Another lesson was that just a handful of large players can create chaos in the system. I am pleased that this year’s annual report clearly highlights certain risks and sets us all on a path for actually using our legal authorities, rather than relegating them to dead letter law.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a report today highlighting that many college-sponsored financial products have higher fees and worse terms and conditions compared to typical market products. The CFPB report identifies college-sponsored deposit accounts with fees above prevailing market rates, which institutions are required to consider under Department of Education rules designed to protect students’ interests.
In a new report, Federal Trade Commission staff detailed key takeaways from an October 2023 public virtual roundtable that examined how generative artificial intelligence, tools that can generate outputs like text, images, and audio on command, is being used and is affecting professionals in music, filmmaking, software development, and other creative fields.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its Fall 2023 rulemaking agenda (PDF) with updates that rules on overdraft fees and personal financial data rights are in the proposal stage.