From: PYMNTS.com
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is looking hard at banks’ policies on opening consumer checking accounts, including the third-party databases they use, American Banker reported.
In an Oct. 8 forum on access to checking accounts, CFPB director Richard Cordray opened the session by raising issues about overdraft protections, how banks report and use credit scores and how they gauge a consumer’s credit risk. That seemed to signal that the CFPB could sweep checking and overdraft fees into its forthcoming rules on payday lenders.
“The CFPB looking into the process of how bankers screen accounts is pretty much an unprecedented step,” said Rich Walker, a former marketing executive at Capital One. While the CFPB has repeatedly warned lenders and credit reporting agencies against sharing inaccurate information about consumers, “when you start to get into the process bankers use to open accounts, it’s just a very different focus,” Walker said.