Clarks' Bank Deposits and Payments Monthly
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September 17, 2021
The Supreme Court’s Transunion Decision Raises “Standing” Threshold For Federal Court
On June 25, 2021, the United States Supreme Court released its opinion in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 2021 U.S. LEXIS 3401 (TransUnion). At issue was whether several thousand putative class members who had information added to their credit report indicating that they might be terrorists, drug traffickers, or other serious criminals, even though they were none of these things, had standing to assert claims for statutory damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Building upon and extending the logic of Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) (Spokeo), the Supreme Court held that Article III standing requires a federal court plaintiff to demonstrate that they have suffered a concrete harm: “No concrete harm, no standing.”
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September 17, 2021
Garnishment Of Directly Deposited Federal Benefit Payments
Federal benefit payments are protected under federal law from creditors, other than the United States government and certain state agencies, seeking to access the funds by way of a garnishment order issued by a court. These benefits are directly deposited into consumer accounts. Even with the protections afforded by federal law, financial institutions subject to a garnishment order are quick to freeze accounts containing federal benefit payments.
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September 17, 2021
Tackling Headaches: An Overview Of Deposit Account Garnishment
Garnishment of deposit accounts is a timely topic for banks, deposit account holders, and third-party creditors, especially now while successive waves of the Coronavirus pandemic are proving relentless.
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August 20, 2021
Federal Reserve Board Views Digitizing The U.S. Dollar As High Priority
The Federal Reserve Board is seriously considering creating a new payments system based on a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). CBDC is issued by a nation’s central bank in digital form as a substitute for cash in physical form. Digitizing the U.S. dollar would largely bypass existing electronic payment systems.
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August 20, 2021
CFPB Expands Safe Harbor Exemption In The Remittance Rule
Regulation E implements protections for persons who send remittances to individuals and businesses in foreign countries (Remittance Rule). The most recent amendments to the Remittance Rule promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) raised the safe harbor compliance exemption threshold (2020 Safe Harbor Exemption).The consequences are most important for smaller players in the marketplace.
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August 20, 2021
Who Is The Bank’s “Customer” For Standing Purposes?
Legal decisions are legion where the strict application of the standing requirement knocks out a potential litigant’s day in court on what appears to be a technicality. This is the usual outcome in cases where the legal issue is who is the bank’s “customer” for standing purposes.
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July 30, 2021
Overdraft Fees And The Statute Of Limitations: Two Federal Courts Dismiss Reg E Claims In Class Action Lawsuits
In two recent federal district court decisions, credit unions relied on the statute of limitations to successfully block consumer class action lawsuits challenging allegedly improper overdraft fees under the EFTA and Reg E.
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July 30, 2021
Congressional Review Act Kills True Lender Rule: What Now?
On June 30th, President Biden signed into law three joint resolutions under the Congressional Review Act (“CRA”). One of those resolutions, S.J.Res. 15, disapproved of and nullified the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s rule titled “National Banks and Federal Savings Associations as Lenders,” more commonly known as the true-lender rule. The resolution passed Congress with essentially unanimous Democratic approval but with only one Republican House member and 3 Republican Senators signing on.
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June 07, 2021
Brookings Study: Do Banks Relying On Overdraft Fees Become “Payday Lenders With A Charter”?
The practice of temporarily covering a payment against insufficient funds in a deposit account used to be a practice banks offered as a courtesy to existing customers in good standing. Today, it is common for banks and credit unions to charge “overdraft fees.” Overdraft fees generate over $34 billion in revenue annually.
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June 07, 2021
Maryland Federal Court Decision On UCC Wrongful Dishonor Adds To The Split Case Law
A recent Maryland federal court decision interpreting the UCC’s provisions on wrongful dishonor recounts a whopper of a story. The facts read like a bad saga of alleged flip-flopped decisions by the drawee bank compounded by clerical mistakes. At times, the drawee bank even reverses its own reversals, at least as pled in the complaint. The opinion decides a motion to dismiss.
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June 07, 2021
Some Basics: Stale Checks And Legends
The prior story discusses Titan Custom Cabinets, Inc. v. Truist Bank, 220 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 229713, 103 UCC Rep.2d 653 (D. Md. 2020) (Titan). The facts bring into play the UCC’s provisions on stale check and legends. Near the end of the long saga of dealings between the plaintiffs and the defendant drawee bank in Titan, the complaint charges the drawee bank with wrongfully honoring a check even though it was stale and contained a legend with a condition. The opinion describes the facts in this way: SunTrust honored the check “negotiated more than 180 days after issuance, even though it bore the legend that it would only be good for 90 days.”
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June 07, 2021
The Clearing House Asks The Fed To Close The Interchange Fee “Loophole” For Fintechs
The Clearing House (TCH) is on a mission to convince the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed or Board) to even out the regulatory landscape for big banks in regard to the exemption small banks enjoy from limitations on interchange fees.
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May 25, 2021
Trends: Banks Block Loss-Shifting In Wire Fraud Cases
A basic principle of UCC Article 4A governing funds transfer is known as the “displacement principle.” As a matter of public policy, Article 4A favors the beneficiary bank and disfavors the victim of the wire transfer fraud.
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May 25, 2021
Massive Payment Error Litigation Expeditiously Moving Along
In the March 2021 edition of this newsletter, we reported on the decision of the Southern District of New York in a lawsuit involving a massive wire-transfer mistake. The Second Circuit has entered a briefing schedule, which will see the appeal (Case No. 21-487) fully briefed by late-July, with oral argument set to occur in August or September of 2021. In the meantime, the parties have recently finished briefing in the Southern District related to Citibank’s motion for an injunction that would prohibit the defendants from distributing the erroneously transferred funds in the meantime. The briefing hints at how the issues on appeal may shake out and how the decision is already beginning to impact the wire-transfer industry.
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May 25, 2021
Fintech Charters: The Saga Continues
In March, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Lacewell v. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (Case No. 19-04271). This is the appeal from the Southern District of New York lawsuit in which the New York Department of Financial Services challenged the OCC’s decision to begin accepting special purpose national bank charters (“SPNB charters” or “fintech charters”) from financial technology companies that would participate in certain aspects of the business of banking but which would not receive deposits. (S.D.N.Y. Case No. 18 Civ. 8377) The district court sided with DFS, determining that DFS had standing and that the National Bank Act precluded the OCC from issuing charters to entities that do not receive deposits.
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April 06, 2021
$900 Million Payment Error Brings “Discharge For Value” Defense To The Fore
A blockbuster lawsuit out of the Southern District of New York—involving a nearly $900 million wire-transfer mistake—has raised a host of questions about fairness, equity, and the “discharge for value” affirmative defense. The case, which is already subject to an expedited appeal in the Second Circuit, is certain to be a hot topic for some time to come and promises—one way or another—to have a lasting impact upon the wire transfer industry.
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April 06, 2021
Sixth Circuit Allows Class Action Against BB&T To Go Forward, Finding Arbitration Clause Constituted A Contract Of Adhesion
Common sense suggests that account holders will become disgruntled when their money market investment accounts (MMIAs) are converted into money rates savings account (MRSAs) and subsequently, the bank lowers the interest rate from a guaranteed 6.5% to the then variable market rate of 0.01% per year.
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April 06, 2021
Removing The Federal “Sword Of Damocles” From Marijuana-Related Banking
Federal legislation giving financial institutions the green light to bank marijuana-related-businesses (MRBs) is once again before the 117th Congress. This time around there seems to be bipartisan support in both the House and Senate for passage.
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March 15, 2021
House Of Cards: Does A Bank Have A Duty To Report A Suspected Check Kite?
A check kiting scheme is like a house of cards. It takes at least two banks to play. Assume a simple kite structure where the fraudster uses two accounts at separate banks to cover uncollected funds or overdrafts in one bank by writing checks drawn on uncollected funds or overdrafts at the other bank. The fraudster takes advantage of the float period between the moment of deposit at one bank and the moment of payment by the other. The fraudster also takes advantage of both banks’ willingness to pay checks against uncollected funds.
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March 15, 2021
Paypal’s Win In DC Federal Court Dismantling Part Of The Prepaid Accounts Rule Likely To Be Tested On Appeal
For years, the payments giant PayPal wrangled unsuccessfully with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau or CFPB) over its decision to treat certain types of “digital wallets” capable of storing funds as “prepaid accounts” subject to the Bureau’s prepaid accounts rule. After the Bureau finalized its prepaid accounts rule, PayPal brought a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia challenging two key provisions of the final prepaid rulemaking.
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February 02, 2021
Justice Barrett’s Seventh Circuit Decision On Standing Signals Trouble For Consumers
Newly minted Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored a significant decision while serving as an appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit. The decision is directly relevant to the financial services industry and consumers. The holding of the case allowed federal standing requirements to close the gateway to federal jurisdiction in a class action lawsuit brought under a consumer protection statute.
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February 04, 2021
New Round Of PPP: Recent Legislative, Regulatory, And Judicial Developments
The end of 2020 and start of 2021 have been marked by a new round of Paycheck Protection Program legislation and updated regulations, as well as a number of decisions from the courts concerning PPP issues—all of which hopefully provides additional clarity for a program in which clarity has often been sorely lacking.
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February 04, 2021
CFPB Debt Collection Practices Rule Part II Finalized Creating Challenges For Bankers And Debt Collectors
In the waning days of the Trump Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fulfilled its promise to address the holes left in its first set of rulemaking amending the federal debt collection rule known as Regulation F. The finalizing amendments are now complete, making it possible to gain some preliminary perspective on the 2020 revised regulation in its entirety.
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January 08, 2021
Sedona Conference Commentary On A Reasonable Security Test: In Synch With Financial Institution Regulation?
Early in this millennium, the Sedona Conference earned a reputation for providing helpful, workable guidance for emerging and overlooked or underserved areas of the law, particularly e-discovery. Via a series of think-tank-style working groups focused on discrete legal issues, the Sedona Conference tries to create “practical solutions and recommendations” which are then “developed and enhanced through a substantive peer-review process” and ultimately “widely published in conjunction with educational programs for the bench and bar, so that it can swiftly drive the reasoned and just advancement of law and policy in the areas under study.” Many judicial decisions—especially from the district courts that must effectively, efficiently, and justly administer the law and civil rules—rely upon and even praise the principles developed by the Sedona Conference, whose mission “is to move the law forward in a reasoned and just way through the creation and publication of nonpartisan consensus commentaries and through advanced legal education for the bench and bar.”
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January 08, 2021
New PPP $2M Loan Necessity Questionnaire Strays From Cares Act
The banking industry entered the coronavirus pandemic in a position of relative strength—far stronger than it was before the Great Recession. As a result, everyone from bank customers to the federal government has looked to banks to help them weather the COIVD-19 storm. In particular, the CARES Act and its Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) created a structure that used banks as conduits for quickly distributing hundreds of billions of dollars of loans to businesses in the hopes that those businesses could continue to pay employees, mortgages and leases, and utilities and thus remain in business.