The National Consumer Law Center, the Center for Responsible Lending and the Student Borrower Protection Center submitted to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on the Request for Information on Bank-Fintech Arrangements Involving Banking Products and Services Distributed to Consumers and Businesses. The comments focus on bank-fintech partnerships in the lending area and the significant risks to consumer protections that those partnerships often create. Experience has shown that both fintechs and their promoters pride themselves on pushing the legal and regulatory envelope. In doing so, we note a relationship between their increased consumer-protection risk-taking activity and a broader culture of risk that leads to other safety and soundness problems at those same banking institutions. Because our consumer protection laws are intended to be applied liberally, it is imperative that prudential regulators remind banks that they act at their own peril by enabling or aligning themselves with consumer protection evasions.
