Washington – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has requested comments on a proposal to define and regulate larger participants in the general-use digital consumer payment marketplace. The Computer & Communications Industry Association offered comments on the financial tech sector providing digital payment options, noting how they provide consumers “expanded access to credit and financial services, speed, convenience, security, and reduced cost of services.”
CCIA’s filing notes that the Dodd-Frank Act requires the CFPB to “consider the potential benefits and costs to consumers and covered persons,” but points out that the current regulatory proposal “fails to clearly identify a specific risk it seeks to address and merely identifies the possibility of ‘new risks’ from ‘new product offerings’ without explicitly stating what those risks might be.”
The following can be attributed to CCIA Vice President of Global Competition and Regulatory Policy Krisztian Katona:
“It’s worth keeping in mind as the CFPB considers further regulations on digital services that consumer feedback seems to point towards a general satisfaction with payment services, which suggests the absence of a market failure in the sector.
“We would urge regulators to tailor new regulations to specific problems they want to fix as broad, overly burdensome or heavy-handed digital regulation could significantly hinder new startups in this industry, and harm U.S. innovation and economic growth.”