On March 5, the U.S. Senate voted 51-47 to overturn the CFPB’s final rule for digital payment companies. The disapproval resolution was introduced last week by Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, and if enacted, it would nullify the CFPB’s final rule subjecting certain nonbank digital payment platforms to CFPB supervision (covered by InfoBytes here) and prevent the CFPB from issuing a “substantially” similar rule without fresh congressional authorization. Specifically, the final rule defined “larger participants” in the general-use digital consumer digital payment application market as nonbanks (1) with an annual volume of at least 50 million transactions, and (2) that are not small business concerns.  A related bill, H.J. Res. 64, has been introduced in the House of Representatives and is currently referred to the House Committee of Financial Services.

Visit our resource center, CFPB Pause: Where From Here?, to stay on top of the latest and what it may mean for the federal and state regulatory and enforcement landscape.