Earlier today, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection released a Public Statement Regarding Payday Rule Reconsideration and Delay of Compliance Date. Echoing rumors that have been circulating in the industry for several weeks (which we had agreed not to address in our blog), the Statement reads in full as follows:

The Bureau expects to issue proposed rules in January 2019 that will reconsider the Bureau’s rule regarding Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans and address the rule’s compliance date. The Bureau will make final decisions regarding the scope of the proposal closer to the issuance of the proposed rules. However, the Bureau is currently planning to propose revisiting only the ability-to-repay provisions and not the payments provisions, in significant part because the ability-to-repay provisions have much greater consequences for both consumers and industry than the payment provisions. The proposals will be published as quickly as practicable consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act and other applicable law.

Of course, the Bureau is correct in observing that the ability-to-repay (ATR) provisions of the Rule “have much greater consequences for both consumers and industry than the payment provisions.”  That is because the ATR provisions, if allowed to go into effect, would largely kill the industry and thus deprive millions of consumers of a source of credit they deem essential.  Nevertheless, the draconian potential consequences of the ATR provisions do not justify leaving the payment provisions intact. These provisions are unduly complicated. They require hard-to-reach consumers to affirmatively reauthorize lender-initiated payment attempts after two consecutive unsuccessful attempts rather than relying on a simpler and more straightforward notice and opt-out regimen.

Also, while the payment provisions are supposedly designed to prevent excessive NSF fees, as we have pointed out in a comment letter to the Bureau and elsewhere, they treat attempts to initiate payments by debit card, where there is no chance of any NSF fee, the same as other forms of payment that can give rise to NSF fees. This treatment of card payments can only be ascribed to the hostility to high-rate lending characteristic of the former leadership of the Bureau. If the Bureau does nothing else with the Rule’s payment provisions, it should certainly correct this wholly indefensible aspect of the Rule.

We note that the Bureau requested an extension until Monday, October 29, to respond to the preliminary injunction motion by the Community Financial Services Association and Consumer Service Alliance of Texas. If the Bureau files its response Monday, we will likely have more to report.