[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 31 (Thursday, February 14, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 4252-4298]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-01906]



[[Page 4251]]

Vol. 84

Thursday,

No. 31

February 14, 2019

Part IV





Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection





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12 CFR Part 1041





Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans and 
Delay of Compliance Date; Proposed Rules

  Federal Register / Vol. 84 , No. 31 / Thursday, February 14, 2019 / 
Proposed Rules  

[[Page 4252]]


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BUREAU OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION

12 CFR Part 1041

[Docket No. CFPB-2019-0006]
RIN 3170-AA80


Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans

AGENCY: Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking.

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SUMMARY: The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) is 
proposing to rescind certain provisions of the regulation promulgated 
by the Bureau in November 2017 governing Payday, Vehicle Title, and 
Certain High-Cost Installment Loans (2017 Final Rule or Rule). The 
provisions of the Rule which the Bureau proposes to rescind provide 
that it is an unfair and abusive practice for a lender to make a 
covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan, including 
payday and vehicle title loans, without reasonably determining that 
consumers have the ability to repay those loans according to their 
terms; prescribe mandatory underwriting requirements for making the 
ability-to-repay determination; exempt certain loans from the mandatory 
underwriting requirements; and establish related definitions, 
reporting, and recordkeeping requirements. This proposal is related to 
another proposal, published separately in this issue of the Federal 
Register, seeking comment on whether the Bureau should delay the August 
19, 2019 compliance date for these portions of the 2017 Final Rule.

DATES: Comments must be received on or before May 15, 2019.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CFPB-2019-
0006 or RIN 3170-AA80, by any of the following methods:
     Electronic: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 
instructions for submitting comments.
     Email: [email protected]. Include 
Docket No. CFPB-2019-0006 or RIN 3170-AA80 in the subject line of the 
message.
     Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier: Comment Intake, Bureau of 
Consumer Financial Protection, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552.
    Instructions: The Bureau encourages the early submission of 
comments. All submissions should include the agency name and docket 
number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. 
Because paper mail in the Washington, DC area and at the Bureau is 
subject to delay, commenters are encouraged to submit comments 
electronically. In general, all comments received will be posted 
without change to https://www.regulations.gov. In addition, comments 
will be available for public inspection and copying at 1700 G Street 
NW, Washington, DC 20552, on official business days between the hours 
of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time. You can make an appointment to 
inspect the documents by telephoning 202-435-7275.
    All comments, including attachments and other supporting materials, 
will become part of the public record and subject to public disclosure. 
Proprietary information or sensitive personal information, such as 
account numbers, Social Security numbers, or names of other 
individuals, should not be included. Comments will not be edited to 
remove any identifying or contact information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eliott C. Ponte, Attorney-Advisor; Amy 
Durant, Lawrence Lee, or Adam Mayle, Counsels; or Kristine M. 
Andreassen, Senior Counsel, Office of Regulations, at 202-435-7700. If 
you require this document in an alternative electronic format, please 
contact [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Summary of the Proposed Rule

    On October 5, 2017, the Bureau issued the 2017 Final Rule 
establishing consumer protection regulations for payday loans, vehicle 
title loans, and certain high-cost installment loans, relying on 
authorities under Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and 
Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act or the Act).\1\ The Rule 
was published in the Federal Register on November 17, 2017.\2\ It 
became effective on January 16, 2018, although most provisions (12 CFR 
1041.2 through 1041.10, 1041.12, and 1041.13) have a compliance date of 
August 19, 2019.\3\ On January 16, 2018, the Bureau issued a statement 
announcing its intention to engage in rulemaking to reconsider the 2017 
Final Rule.\4\ A legal challenge to the Rule was filed on April 9, 
2018, and is pending in the United States District Court for the 
Western District of Texas.\5\ On October 26, 2018, the Bureau issued a 
subsequent statement announcing it expected to issue notices of 
proposed rulemaking (NPRMs) to reconsider certain provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule and to address the Rule's compliance date.\6\ This is 
one of those proposals; the other is published separately in this issue 
of the Federal Register.
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    \1\ Public Law 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376 (2010).
    \2\ 82 FR 54472 (Nov. 17, 2017). The Bureau released its 
proposal regarding payday, vehicle title, and certain high-cost 
installment for public comment on June 2, 2016 (2016 Proposal). 81 
FR 47864 (July 22, 2016).
    The Bureau received well over one million comments on the 2016 
Proposal. As the Bureau noted in the 2017 Final Rule, these comments 
included a large number of positive accounts of how people 
successfully used such loans to address shortfalls or cope with 
emergencies and concerns about the possibility of access to payday 
loans being removed. 82 FR 54472, 54559. There were, however, a 
significant though smaller number of comments discussing negative 
experiences from individual consumers or persons concerned about the 
impact payday loans have had on consumers whom they knew. Id. at 
54559-60.
    \3\ Id. at 54814.
    \4\ See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Statement on Payday Rule 
(Jan. 16, 2018), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-statement-payday-rule/.
    \5\ Cmty. Fin. Serv. Ass'n of Am. v. Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, 
No. 1:18-cv-295 (W.D. Tex.). On November 6, 2018, the court issued 
an order staying the August 19, 2019 compliance date of the Rule 
pending further order of the court. See id., ECF No. 53. The 
litigation is currently stayed. See id., ECF No. 29.
    \6\ See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Public Statement 
Regarding Payday Rule Reconsideration and Delay of Compliance Date 
(Oct. 26, 2018), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/public-statement-regarding-payday-rule-reconsideration-and-delay-compliance-date/.
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    The 2017 Final Rule addressed two discrete topics. First, the Rule 
contained a set of provisions with respect to the underwriting of 
covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans, including 
payday and vehicle title loans, and related recordkeeping and reporting 
requirements.\7\ These provisions are referred to herein as the 
``Mandatory Underwriting Provisions'' of the 2017 Final Rule. Second, 
the Rule contained a set of provisions, applicable to the same set of 
loans and also to certain high-cost installment loans,\8\ establishing 
certain requirements and limitations with respect to attempts to 
withdraw payments on the loans from consumers' checking or other 
accounts.\9\ These provisions are referred to herein as the ``Payment 
Provisions'' of the 2017 Final Rule.
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    \7\ 12 CFR 1041.4 through 1041.6, 1041.10, 1041.11, and portions 
of 1041.12.
    \8\ The 2017 Final Rule refers to all three of these categories 
of loans together as covered loans. 12 CFR 1041.3(b).
    \9\ 12 CFR 1041.7 through 1041.9, and portions of 1041.12.
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    The Bureau is proposing in this NPRM to rescind the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule. Specifically, the 
Bureau is proposing to rescind (1) the ``identification'' provision 
which states that it is an unfair and abusive practice for a lender to 
make covered short-term

[[Page 4253]]

loans or covered longer-term balloon-payment loans without reasonably 
determining that consumers will have the ability to repay the loans 
according to their terms; \10\ (2) the ``prevention'' provision which 
establishes specific underwriting requirements for these loans to 
prevent the unfair and abusive practice; \11\ (3) the ``conditional 
exemption'' provision for certain covered short-term loans; \12\ (4) 
the ``furnishing'' provisions which require lenders making covered 
short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loans to furnish certain 
information regarding such loans to registered information systems 
(RISes) and create a process for registering such information systems; 
\13\ and (5) those portions of the recordkeeping provisions related to 
the mandatory underwriting requirements.\14\ The Bureau also is 
proposing to rescind the Official Interpretations relating to these 
provisions.
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    \10\ 12 CFR 1041.4.
    \11\ 12 CFR 1041.5.
    \12\ 12 CFR 1041.6.
    \13\ 12 CFR 1041.10 and 1041.11.
    \14\ 12 CFR 1041.12(b)(1) through (3).
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    As explained below, the Bureau now initially determines that the 
evidence underlying the identification of the unfair and abusive 
practice in the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final 
Rule is not sufficiently robust and reliable to support that 
determination, in light of the impact those provisions will have on the 
market for covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans, 
and the ability of consumers to obtain such loans, among other things. 
The Bureau is not aware of any additional evidence that would provide 
the support needed for the key findings that are essential to such a 
determination and does not believe it is cost-effective for itself and 
for lenders and borrowers to conduct the necessary research to try to 
develop those key findings. The Bureau is therefore proposing to 
rescind those identifications. The Bureau is also now initially 
determining that its approach for unfairness and abusiveness was 
problematic and is proposing a different approach to determining 
whether consumers can reasonably avoid the substantial injury that the 
Rule determined is caused or likely to be caused by the failure to 
underwrite these loans,\15\ whether such injury is outweighed by 
countervailing benefits to consumers and to competition,\16\ and 
whether the failure to underwrite takes unreasonable advantage of 
particular consumer vulnerabilities.\17\ Based on its reconsideration 
of these issues, the Bureau is proposing to rescind the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions in their entirety.
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    \15\ See 12 U.S.C. 5531(c)(1)(A).
    \16\ See 12 U.S.C. 5531(c)(1)(B).
    \17\ See 12 U.S.C. 5531(d)(2)(A).
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    The Bureau is not proposing to reconsider the Payment Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule, and the Payment Provisions are outside the scope 
of this NPRM. However, the Bureau has received a rulemaking petition to 
exempt debit card payments from the Rule's Payment Provisions. The 
Bureau has also received informal requests related to various aspects 
of the Payment Provisions or the Rule as a whole, including requests to 
exempt certain types of lenders or loan products from the Rule's 
coverage and to delay the compliance date for the Payment Provisions. 
The Bureau intends to examine these issues and if the Bureau determines 
that further action is warranted, the Bureau will commence a separate 
rulemaking initiative (such as by issuing a request for information 
(RFI) or an advance notice of proposed rulemaking). In addition, the 
Bureau intends to use its existing market monitoring authority to 
gather data on whether the requirement in the 2017 Final Rule that 
lenders provide consumers with ``unusual withdrawal'' notices before 
the lenders make certain withdrawal attempts are made affects the 
number of unsuccessful withdrawals made from consumers' accounts.\18\
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    \18\ 12 CFR 1041.9(b)(1)(ii).
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II. Background

    The SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION accompanying the 2017 Final Rule 
contains background on the payday and vehicle title markets \19\ and on 
the consumers who use these products.\20\ The SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
also contains findings of the impacts that the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule would have on consumers and covered 
persons.\21\ The Bureau does not here repeat all of that information 
and those findings. Rather, this section summarizes the information and 
findings from the 2017 Final Rule that the Bureau views as most 
relevant to the Bureau's decision to propose rescinding the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions.
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    \19\ See 82 FR 54472, 54474-96.
    \20\ Id. at 54555-60.
    \21\ Id. at 54814-46.
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A. The Market for Short-Term and Balloon-Payment Loans

    As the Bureau observed in the 2017 Final Rule, consumers living 
paycheck to paycheck and with little to no savings often use credit as 
a means of coping with financial shortfalls.\22\ These shortfalls may 
be due to mismatched timing between income and expenses, income 
volatility, unexpected expenses or income shocks, or expenses that 
simply exceed income.\23\ According to a recent survey conducted by the 
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), over one-
quarter of adults are either just getting by or finding it difficult to 
get by; a similar percentage skipped necessary medical care in 2017 due 
to being unable to afford the cost. In addition, 40 percent of adults 
reported they would either be unable to cover an emergency expense 
costing $400 or would have to sell something or borrow money to cover 
it.\24\ Whatever the cause of these financial shortfalls, consumers in 
these situations sometimes seek what may broadly be termed a 
``liquidity loan.''
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    \22\ Id. at 54474.
    \23\ Id., citing, generally, Rob Levy & Joshua Sledge, A Complex 
Portrait: An Examination of Small-Dollar Credit Consumers (Ctr. for 
Fin. Serv. Innovation, 2012), https://www.fdic.gov/news/conferences/consumersymposium/2012/A%20Complex%20Portrait.pdf.
    \24\ Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Report on the 
Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017, at 2, 5, 7, 21, 23 
(May 2018), https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf; and Bd. of 
Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Report on the Economic Well-
Being of U.S. Households in 2017, Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire, 
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/appendix-a-survey-questionnaire.htm. These represent improvements from the 2016 survey 
relied upon in the 2017 Final Rule. See 82 FR 54472, 54474 & n.9, 
citing Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Report on the 
Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2016, at 2, 8 (May 2017), 
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2016-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201705.pdf.
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    The Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule 
focused specifically on short-term loans and a smaller market segment 
of longer-term balloon-payment loans. As the Bureau noted, the largest 
categories of short-term loans are ``payday loans,'' which are 
generally short-term loans required to be repaid in a lump-sum single 
payment on receipt of the borrower's next income payment, and short-
term vehicle title loans, which are also almost always due in a lump-
sum single payment, typically within 30 days after the loan is 
made.\25\
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    \25\ 82 FR 54472, 54475.
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1. Payday Loans
    Seventeen States and the District of Columbia prohibit payday 
lending or impose interest rate caps that payday lenders find too low 
to enable them to make such loans profitably. The remaining 33 States 
have either created a carve-out from their general usury cap

[[Page 4254]]

for payday loans or do not regulate interest rates on loans.\26\ 
Several States that previously authorized payday lending have, over the 
past several years, changed their laws to restrict payday lending.\27\
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    \26\ See, e.g., id. at 54477 & n.25. The 2017 Final Rule cited 
35 payday authorizing States, counting New Mexico among those 
States. At the time the rule was issued, New Mexico had enacted a 
law which had not yet taken effect, prohibiting short-term payday 
lending. Now that the law is in effect, New Mexico is no longer 
counted here. Recently, Ohio enacted a law that, when implemented on 
April 27, 2019, will effectively prohibit short-term payday and 
vehicle title lending. Because the Ohio law has not yet been 
implemented, Ohio is counted as a payday authorizing State and 
references herein refer to current Ohio law. See Ohio House Bill 
123, An Act to Modify the Short-Term Loan Act, https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA132-HB-123; https://www.com.ohio.gov/documents/fiin_HB123_Guidance.pdf.
    \27\ See, e.g., 82 FR 54472, 54485-86. In addition, most 
recently, voters in Colorado approved a ballot initiative on 
November 6, 2018 to cap annual percentage rates (APRs) on payday 
loans at 36 percent. This initiative takes effect February 1, 2019, 
shortly before the release of this NPRM. Colorado is now counted 
here as a State prohibiting short-term payday lending. See Colo. 
Legislative Council Staff, Initiative #126 Initial Fiscal Impact 
Statement, https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/filings/2017-2018/126FiscalImpact.pdf; see also Colo. 
Sec'y of State, Official Certified Results--State Offices & 
Questions, https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CO/91808/Web02-state.220747/#/c/C_2 (Proposition 111).
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    States that permit payday lending have chosen to adopt a variety of 
limitations, including regulations of the maximum price,\28\ minimum 
loan term,\29\ maximum loan amount,\30\ the maximum number of loans 
that can be made to an individual consumer (loan cap),\31\ the maximum 
number of times that a consumer may renew or roll over a loan,\32\ and 
the length of time between loans (cooling-off periods).\33\ In 
addition, at least 16 States have adopted laws requiring payday lenders 
to offer borrowers the option of taking an extended repayment plan when 
encountering difficulty in repaying the loan.\34\ These State laws 
represent the judgment of the various States as to the limitations, if 
any, that should be placed on the terms pursuant to which consumers 
have the ability to choose payday loans within their respective 
jurisdictions.
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    \28\ Of the States that expressly authorize payday lending, 
Rhode Island has the lowest cap at 10 percent of the loan amount. 
R.I. Gen. Laws sec. 19-14.4-4(4). Florida caps fees at 10 percent of 
the loan amount plus a flat $5 database verification fee. Fla. Stat. 
Ann. sec. 560.404(6). Oregon's fees are $10 per $100 capped at $30 
plus 36 percent interest. Or. Rev. Stat. sec. 725A.064(1) & (2). 
Some States have tiered caps depending on the size of the loan. 
Generally, in these States the cap declines with loan size. However, 
in Mississippi, the cap is $20 per $100 for loans under $250 and 
$21.95 for loans up to $500 (the State maximum). Miss. Code Ann. 
sec. 75-67-519(4). Six States do not cap fees on payday loans or are 
silent on fees: Delaware, Idaho, Nevada, Texas (no cap on credit 
access business fees added to interest on loans), Utah, and 
Wisconsin. Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, sec. 2229; Idaho Code sec. 28-46-
412(3); Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 675.365; Tex. Fin. Code Ann. sec. 
393.602(b); Utah Code Ann. sec. 7-23-401; Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 
138.14(10)(a). See also 82 FR 54472, 54477 & n.31.
    \29\ For example, Washington requires the due date to be on or 
after the borrower's next pay date, but if the pay date is within 
seven days of taking out the loan, the due date must be on the 
second pay date after the loan is made. Wash. Rev. Code Ann. sec. 
31.45.073(2). See also 82 FR 54472, 54478 & n.35.
    \30\ At least 18 States cap payday loan amounts between $500 and 
$600 (Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, 
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, 
Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia). 
Ala. Code sec. 5-18A-12(a); Alaska Stat. sec. 06.50.410; Fla. Stat. 
Ann. sec. 560.404(5); Haw. Rev. Stat. sec. 480F-4(c); Iowa Code Ann. 
sec. 533D.10(1)(b); Kan. Stat. Ann. sec. 16a-2-404(1)(c); Ky. Rev. 
Stat. Ann. sec. 286.9-100(9); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. sec. 
487.2153(1); Miss. Code Ann. sec. 75-67-519(2); Mo. Rev. Stat. sec. 
408.500(1); Neb. Rev. Stat. sec. 45-919(1)(b); N.D. Cent. Code sec. 
13-08-12(3); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. sec. 1321.39(A); Okla. Stat. Ann. 
tit. 59, sec. 3106(7); R.I. Gen. Laws sec. 19-14.4-5.1(a); S.C. Code 
Ann. sec. 34-39-180(B); Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 45-17-112(o); Va. Code 
Ann. sec. 6.2-1816(5). California limits payday loans to $300 
(including the fee), and Delaware caps loans at $1,000. Cal. Fin. 
Code sec. 23035(a); Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, sec. 2227(7). States that 
limit the loan amount to the lesser of one percent of the borrower's 
income or a fixed-dollar amount include Idaho (25 percent or 
$1,000), Illinois (25 percent or $1,000), Indiana (20 percent or 
$550), Washington (30 percent or $700), and Wisconsin (35 percent or 
$1,500). Idaho Code Ann. sec. 28-46-413(1)-(2); 815 Ill. Comp. Stat. 
122/2-5(e); Ind. Code secs. 24-4.5-7-402, 404; Wash. Rev. Code sec. 
31.45.073(2); Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 138.14(12)(b). At least one 
State, Nevada, caps the maximum payday loan at 25 percent of the 
borrower's gross monthly income. Nev. Rev. Stat. sec. 604A.5017. A 
few States' laws (e.g., Utah and Wyoming) are silent as to the 
maximum loan amount. Utah Code Ann. sec. 7-23-401; Wyo. Stat. Ann. 
sec. 40-14-363. See also 82 FR 54472, 54477 & n.27.
    \31\ Washington limits consumers to no more than eight loans 
from all lenders in a rolling 12-month period. See Wash. Dep't of 
Fin. Insts., 2017 Payday Lending Report, at 7, https://dfi.wa.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2017-payday-loan-report.pdf. Delaware, a 
State with no fee restrictions for payday loans, restricts consumers 
to five payday loans, including rollovers, in a 12-month period. 
Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, secs. 2227(7), 2235A(a)(1). See also 82 FR 
54472, 54486 & nn.128, 129.
    \32\ States that prohibit rollovers include California, Florida, 
Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, 
Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, 
Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Cal. Fin. Code sec. 23037(a); 
Fla. Stat. Ann. sec. 560.404(18); Haw. Rev. Stat. sec. 480F-4(d); 
815 Ill. Comp. Stat. 122/2-30; Ind. Code sec. 24-4.5-7-402(7); Ky. 
Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 286.9-100(14); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. sec. 
487.2155(1); Minn. Stat. Ann. sec. 47.60(2)(f); Miss. Code Ann. sec. 
75-67-519(5); Neb. Rev. Stat. sec. 45-919(1)(f); Okla. Stat. Ann. 
tit. 59, sec. 3109(A); S.C. Code Ann. sec. 34-39-180(F); Tenn. Code 
Ann. sec. 45-17-112(q); Va. Code Ann. sec. 6.2-1816(6); Wash. Rev. 
Code Ann. sec. 31.45.073(2); Wyo. Stat. Ann. sec. 40-14-364. Other 
States such as Iowa and Kansas restrict a loan from being repaid 
with the proceeds of another loan; Wisconsin limits such loans. Iowa 
Code Ann. sec. 533D.10(1)(e); Kan. Stat. Ann. sec. 16a-2-404(6); 
Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 138.14 (12)(a). Other States that permit some 
limited degree of rollovers include Alabama (one); Alaska (two); 
Delaware (four); Idaho (three); Missouri (six if there is at least 5 
percent principal reduction on each rollover); Nevada (may extend 
loan up to 60 days after the end of the initial loan term); North 
Dakota (one); Oregon (two); Rhode Island (one); and Utah (allowed up 
to 10 weeks after the execution of the first loan). Ala. Code sec. 
5-18A-12(b); Alaska Stat. sec. 06.50.470(b); Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, 
sec. 2235A(a)(2); Idaho Code Ann. sec. 28-46-413(9); Mo. Rev. Stat. 
sec. 408.500(6); Nev. Rev. Stat. sec. 604A.5029(1); N.D. Cent. Code 
sec. 13-08-12(12); Or. Rev. Stat. sec. 725A.064(6); R.I. Gen. Laws 
sec. 19-14.4-5.1(g); Utah Code Ann. sec. 7-23-401(4)(c). See also 82 
FR 54472, 54478 & n.37.
    \33\ States with cooling-off periods include Alabama (next 
business day after a rollover is paid in full); Florida (24 hours); 
Illinois (seven days after a consumer has had payday loans for more 
than 45 days); Indiana (seven days after five consecutive loans); 
North Dakota (three business days); Ohio (one day with a two loan 
limit in 90 days, four per year); Oklahoma (two business days after 
fifth consecutive loan); Oregon (seven days); South Carolina (one 
business day between all loans and two business days after seventh 
loan in a calendar year); Virginia (one day between all loans, 45 
days after fifth loan in a 180-day period, and 90 days after 
completion of an extended payment plan or extended term loan); and 
Wisconsin (24 hour after renewals). Ala. Code sec. 5-18A-12(b); Fla. 
Stat. Ann. sec. 560.404(19); 815 Ill. Comp. Stat. 122/2-5(b); Ind. 
Code sec. 24-4.5-7-401(2); N.D. Cent. Code sec. 13-08-12(4); Ohio 
Rev. Code Ann. sec. 1321.41(E), (N), (R); Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 59, 
sec. 3110; Or. Rev. Stat. sec. 725A.064(7); S.C. Code Ann. sec. 34-
39-270(A), (B); Va. Code Ann. sec. 6.2-1816(6); Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 
138.14(12)(a). See also 82 FR 54472, 54478 & n.39.
    \34\ States with statutory extended repayment plans include 
Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, 
Michigan (fee permitted), Nevada, Oklahoma (fee permitted), South 
Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 
Florida also requires that, as a condition of providing a repayment 
plan (called a grace period), borrowers make an appointment with a 
consumer credit counseling agency and complete counseling by the end 
of the plan. Ala. Code sec. 5-18A-12(c); Alaska Stat. sec. 
06.50.550(a); Fla. Stat. Ann. sec. 560.404(22)(a); Idaho Code Ann. 
sec. 28-46-414; 815 Ill. Comp. Stat. 122/2-40; Ind. Code sec. 24-
4.5-7-401(3), 404; La. Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 9:3578.4.1; Mich. Comp. 
Laws Ann. sec. 487.2155(2); Nev. Rev. Stat. sec. 604A.5027(1); Okla. 
Stat. tit. 59, sec. 3109(D); S.C. Code Ann. sec. 34-39-280; Utah 
Code Ann. sec. 7-23-403; Va. Code Ann. sec. 6.2-1816(26); Wash. Rev. 
Code Ann. sec. 31.45.084(1); Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 138.14(11)(g); 
Wyo. Stat. Ann. sec. 40-14-366(a). See also 82 FR 54472, 54478 & 
n.40.
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    Changes to State-level regulation as described above may have 
contributed to the decline in payday lending complaints the Bureau 
handled through its Consumer Response database. As cited in the 2017 
Final Rule, in 2016 the Bureau handled approximately 4,400 complaints 
in which consumers reported ``payday loan'' as the complaint 
product.\35\ In contrast, the Bureau received approximately 2,900 
payday loan complaints in 2017, and

[[Page 4255]]

approximately 2,300 in 2018.\36\ In each of these reporting years, it 
appears that consumers complained most frequently about unexpected fees 
associated with payday loans, while consumers complaining about 
receiving a loan for which payday lenders had not determined their 
ability to repay loans were less frequent.
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    \35\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual 
Report, Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2016, at 33 (March 2017), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/3368/201703_cfpb_Consumer-Response-Annual-Report-2016.PDF.
    \36\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual 
Report, Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 2017, at 34 (March 2018), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/6406/cfpb_consumer-response-annual-report_2017.pdf; Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot. Consumer 
Response Database. To provide a sense of the number of complaints 
for payday loans relative to the number of complaints for other 
product categories, from October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018, 
approximately 0.7 percent of all consumer complaints the Bureau 
received were about payday loans, and 0.2 percent were about vehicle 
title loans. Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Fall 2018 Semi-Annual 
Report of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, at 25 
(forthcoming Feb. 2019). The Bureau notes that there is some overlap 
across product categories, for example, a consumer complaining about 
the conduct of a debt collector seeking to recover on a payday loan 
would be in the debt collection product category rather than the 
payday loan product category.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The primary channel through which consumers obtain payday loans, as 
measured by total dollar volume, is through State-licensed storefront 
locations. Nevertheless, as discussed in the 2017 Final Rule, the 
online payday loan industry generates about 50 percent of total payday 
loan revenue.\37\ According to one industry analyst, there were an 
estimated 14,348 storefronts in 2017, down from the industry's peak of 
over 24,000 stores ten years earlier.\38\ In the 2017 Final Rule, the 
Bureau noted that there were at least 10 payday lenders with 
approximately 200 or more storefront locations.\39\ The Bureau also 
estimated that there were over 2,400 storefront payday lenders that are 
small businesses as defined by the Small Business Administration 
(SBA).\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \37\ See 82 FR 54472, 54487 and John Hecht, Short Term Lending 
Update: Moving Forward with Positive Momentum (2018) (Jefferies LLC, 
slide presentation) (on file).
    \38\ See John Hecht, Short Term Lending Update: Moving Forward 
with Positive Momentum (2018) (Jefferies LLC, slide presentation) 
(on file). In 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau cited the same analyst's 
estimate of 16,480 payday storefronts in 2015. See 82 FR 54472, 
54480 & n.53.
    \39\ 82 FR 54472, 54479 & n.49. These lenders include ACE Cash 
Express, Advance America, Amscot Financial, Axcess Financial 
(including brands Check `n Go, Allied Cash), Check Into Cash, 
Community Choice Financial (including brand Checksmart), CURO 
Financial Technologies (including brand Speedy Cash), DFC Global 
Corp (Money Mart), FirstCash, and QC Holdings. Additional payday 
lenders with at least 200 storefront locations include Cash Express, 
LLC and Cottonwood Financial dba Cash Store. See ACE Cash Express, 
``Store Locator,'' https://www.acecashexpress.com/locations; Advance 
America, ``Find an Advance America Store Location,'' https://www.advanceamerica.net/store-locations; Amscot Financial, Inc., 
``Amscot Locations,'' https://www.amscot.com/locations.aspx; Check 
`n Go, ``State Center,'' https://www.checkngo.com/resources/state-center; Allied Cash Advance, ``Allied Cash Advance Store 
Directory,'' https://locations.alliedcash.com/index.html; Check Into 
Cash, ``Payday Loan Information By State,'' https://checkintocash.com/payday-loan-information-by-state; Community Choice 
Financial (Checksmart), ``Locations,'' https://www.ccfi.com/locations/; SpeedyCash, ``Speedy Cash Stores Near Me,'' https://www.speedycash.com/find-a-store; Money Mart Financial Services, 
``Home,'' http://www.moneymartfinancialservices.com/index.html; 
FirstCash Inc., ``Find a Location Near You,'' http://www.firstcash.com/; QC Holdings, Inc., ``United States Retail 
Operations,'' https://www.qchi.com/productsandservices/usa/retail/; 
see Cash Express, LLC, https://www.cashtn.com/; see also https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bureau-consumer-financial-protection-settles-cash-express/(noting approximately 328 retail 
lending outlets); Cottonwood Financial dba Cash Store, https://www.cashstore.com/cash-advance-lender-about-us (all last visited 
Feb. 4, 2019).
    \40\ 82 FR 54472, 54479 & n.52. The number of storefront payday 
lenders classified as small businesses has likely declined to some 
extent, continuing the trend noted over the last several years. See 
id. at 54480 & n.53.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Studies seeking to determine the number of consumers who use payday 
loans annually have come up with a wide range of estimates, from 2.2 
million households \41\ to 12 million individuals.\42\ Given the number 
of storefronts and the average number of customers per storefront plus 
the presence of the large online market for payday loans, the actual 
number of borrowers appears closer to the higher end of the estimates 
and is cited by at least one industry trade association.\43\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \41\ See Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 2017 FDIC National Survey of 
Unbanked and Underbanked Households, at 41 (Oct. 2018), https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf. This is a 
reduction from the 2015 numbers of 2.5 million households cited in 
the 2017 Final Rule; see 82 FR 54472, 54479 & n.42, citing Fed. 
Deposit Ins. Corp., 2015 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and 
Underbanked Households, at 2, 34 (Oct. 20, 2016), https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2015/2015report.pdf.
    \42\ 82 FR 54472, 54479 & n.44, citing Pew Charitable Trusts, 
Payday Lending in America: Who Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why, 
at 4 (July 2012), http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/
uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/pewpaydaylendingreportpdf.pdf.
    \43\ Community Financial Services of America, a trade 
association representing payday and small-dollar lenders, states 
that approximately 12 million Americans use small dollar loans each 
year. See https://www.cfsaa.com/ (last visited Feb. 4, 2019). The 
2017 Final Rule pointed to one study estimating, based on 
administrate State data from three States, that the average payday 
store served around 500 customers per year. 82 FR 54472, 54480 & 
n.59 citing Pew Charitable Trusts, Payday Lending in America: Policy 
Solutions, at 18 (Report 3, 2013) https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2013/pewpaydaypolicysolutionsoct2013pdf.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A number of studies have focused on the characteristics of payday 
borrowers and have found that they typically come from low and moderate 
income households.\44\ The Bureau's own research found that 18 percent 
of storefront borrowers relied on Social Security or some other form of 
government benefits or public assistance.\45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \44\ See 82 FR 54472, 54556-57 (citing studies discussed in 
text).
    \45\ See id. at 54556 & n.469, referencing the Bureau's analysis 
of confidential supervisory data in Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., 
Payday Loans and Deposit Advance Products--A White Paper of Initial 
Data Findings, at 18 (2013), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201304_cfpb_payday-dap-whitepaper.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Studies of payday borrowers show poor credit histories, limited 
credit availability, and recent credit-seeking activity.\46\ For 
example, a report analyzing credit scores of borrowers from five large 
storefront payday lenders and a number of online lenders found that the 
average storefront borrower had a VantageScore 3.0 score of 532 and 
that the average online borrower had a score of 525.\47\ An academic 
paper that matched administrative data (i.e., data that is collected or 
obtained from an organization's or institution's own records and 
operations) from one storefront payday lender to credit bureau data 
found that 80 percent of payday applicants had either no credit card or 
no credit available on a card.\48\ The average borrower had 5.2 credit 
inquiries on her credit report over the 12 months preceding her initial 
application for a payday loan (three times the number for the general 
population), but obtained only 1.4 accounts on average.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \46\ See 82 FR 54472, 54557 (citing studies discussed in text).
    \47\ See id. at 54557, nn.480, 482, citing nonPrime101, Report 
8: Can Storefront Payday Borrowers Become Installment Loan 
Borrowers? Can Storefront Payday Lenders Become Installment 
Lenders?, at 5, 7 (2015) (on file). A VantageScore 3.0 score is a 
credit score created by an eponymous joint venture of the three 
major credit reporting companies; scores lie in the range of 300-
850. See 82 FR 54472, 54557 n.479. By way of comparison, the 
national average VantageScore in 2017 was 675 and only 21.2 percent 
of consumers have a VantageScore below 600. Experian, State of 
Credit: 2017 (2018), https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/state-of-credit/.
    \48\ See 82 FR 54472, 54557 & n.477, citing Neil Bhutta et al., 
Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan Bans, 59 J. of L. and Econ. 
225, at 231-233 (2016). Note that the credit score used in this 
analysis was the Equifax Risk Score which ranges from 280-850. 
Frederic Huynh, FICO Score Distribution, FICO Blog (Apr. 15, 2013), 
http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/risk-compliance/fico-score-distribution-remains-mixed/.
    \49\ 82 FR 54472, 54557 & n.478, citing Neil Bhutta et al., 
Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan Bans, 59 J. of L. & Econ. 225, 
at 231-233 (2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Surveys of payday borrowers add to the picture of a substantial 
portion of consumers in financial distress.\50\ For example, in a 
survey of payday borrowers published in 2009, fewer than half reported 
having any savings or

[[Page 4256]]

reserve funds.\51\ Similarly, a 2007 survey found that over 80 percent 
of payday borrowers reported making at least one late payment on a bill 
in the preceding three months, and approximately one quarter reported 
frequently paying bills late.\52\ Approximately half reported bouncing 
at least one check in the previous three months, and 30 percent 
reported doing so more than once.\53\ Furthermore, a 2012 survey found 
that 58 percent of payday borrowers report that they struggle to pay 
their bills on time.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \50\ 82 FR 54472, 54458 (citing surveys referenced in text).
    \51\ Id. at 54458 & n.485, citing Gregory Elliehausen, An 
Analysis of Consumers' Use of Payday Loans, at 29 (Geo. Wash. Sch. 
of Bus., Monograph No. 41, 2009), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237554300_AN_ANALYSIS_OF_CONSUMERS%27_USE_OF_PAYDAY_LOANS.
    \52\ 82 FR 54472, 54558 & n.486, citing Jonathan Zinman, 
Restricting Consumer Credit Access: Household Survey Evidence on 
Effects Around the Oregon Rate Cap, at 20 tbl. 1 (Dartmouth College, 
2008), http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jzinman/Papers/
Zinman_RestrictingAccess_oct08.pdf.
    \53\ Id.
    \54\ 82 FR 54472, 54558 & n.487, citing Pew Charitable Trusts, 
Payday Lending in America: How Borrowers Choose and Repay Payday 
Loans, at 9 (Report 2, 2013), http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2013/02/19/how-borrowers-choose-and-repay-payday-loans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    According to Bureau research, payday loan borrowers typically 
borrow relatively small amounts, with a median loan size of $350.\55\ 
As the Bureau observed in the 2017 Final Rule, understanding why 
borrowers take out a payday loan is challenging for several reasons. 
For example, because money is fungible, a consumer who has an 
unexpected expense may not feel the effect fully until weeks later and 
thus, when surveyed, may say either that she took out the loan because 
of the unexpected expense, or that she took out the loan to cover a 
bill that had come due and for which she was short of cash.\56\ Perhaps 
because of this difficulty, results across surveys are somewhat 
inconsistent, with one finding that unexpected expenses were driving a 
large share of payday borrowing, while others finding that payday loans 
are used primarily to pay for regular expenses such as rent, utilities, 
or other bills.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \55\ 82 FR 54472, 54477 & n.28, citing Bureau of Consumer Fin. 
Prot., Payday Loans and Deposit Advance Products--A White Paper of 
Initial Data Findings, at 15 (2013), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201304_cfpb_payday-dap-whitepaper.pdf.
    \56\ 82 FR 54472, 54558.
    \57\ Id.; see also id. at 54558-59 (citing and discussing 
surveys).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Research by the Bureau found that 80 percent to 85 percent of 
payday borrowers succeed in repaying their loans.\58\ Of these, the 
Bureau found that between 22 percent and 30 percent do so after 
receiving a single loan while the remainder repaid after reborrowing 
one or more times.\59\ Of those who defaulted, according to the 
Bureau's research, roughly 30 percent did so when the loan was 
initially due while the remainder defaulted after taking out one or 
more subsequent loans.\60\ The Bureau found that borrowers end up 
taking out at least four loans in a row 43 to 50 percent of the time, 
taking out at least seven loans in a row 27 to 33 percent of the time, 
and taking out at least 10 loans in a row 19 to 24 percent of the 
time.\61\ The average payday loan sequence, according to Bureau 
research, is between 5 and 6 loans.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \58\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Supplemental findings on 
payday, payday installment, and vehicle title loans and deposit 
advance products, at 120 (June 2016), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/documents/329/Supplemental_Report_060116.pdf 
(hereinafter, Supplemental Findings).
    \59\ Id. The Bureau looked at repayment rates over loan 
``sequences'' and analyzed outcomes using a 14-day definition of a 
loan sequence (i.e., treating loans made within 14 days of a prior 
loan as part of a single sequence) and, alternatively, a 30-day 
definition. The higher repayment rates are from the 14-day 
definition.
    \60\ Id.
    \61\ Id. at 123.
    \62\ Id. at 117.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A longitudinal report by a specialty consumer reporting agency 
following 1,000 borrowers conducted over 4.5 years found that 30 
percent of the original 1,000 borrowers used payday loans persistently 
over the full observation period.\63\ For the persistent borrowers, the 
average number of loan sequences was approximately 7.3 and these 
borrowers had a payday loan outstanding about 60 percent of the 
time.\64\ Of the original borrowers who did not use payday loans 
persistently during the observation period, the average number of loan 
sequences was approximately 4.5.\65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \63\ See 82 FR 54472, 54836, citing nonPrime 101, Report 7C: A 
Balanced View of Storefront Payday Borrowing Patterns, at tbl. A-7 
(2016) (on file); see also id. at 6 (tbl.3), 11. The study sought to 
have a constant population of 1,000 borrowers. Borrowers who left 
during the time period of the study were replaced by new borrowers 
to maintain a constant population 1,000 borrowers. Id. at 3. For the 
study's definition of ``persistent borrower,'' see id. at 4.
    \64\ nonPrime101, Report 7C: A Balanced View of Storefront 
Payday Borrowing Patterns, at 3, 6 (2016) (on file); see also id. at 
14-15 & fig. 42.
    \65\ Id. at 6 & tbl. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Single-Payment Vehicle Title Loans
    The second major category of loans covered by the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule is single-payment 
vehicle title loans. As explained in the 2017 Final Rule, in a title 
loan transaction, the borrower must provide identification and usually 
the title to the vehicle as evidence that the borrower owns the vehicle 
``free and clear.'' \66\ The lender retains the vehicle title or some 
other form of security interest during the duration of the loan, while 
the borrower retains physical possession of the vehicle.\67\ Single-
payment vehicle title loans are typically due in 30 days.\68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \66\ 82 FR 54472, 54489.
    \67\ See id. at 54490. See also, e.g., Speedy Cash, Title Loans 
FAQs, https://www.speedycash.com/faqs/title-loans (last visited Feb. 
4. 2019); TitleMax, Answers to Your Questions about Title Loans, 
https://www.titlemax.com/faqs (last visited Feb. 4, 2019).
    \68\ See 82 FR 54472, 54490 & n.181, citing Pew Charitable 
Trusts, Auto Title Loans--Market practices and borrowers' 
experiences (2015), https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2015/
03/autotitleloansreport.pdf. See also Idaho Dep't of Fin., Idaho 
Credit Code `Fast Facts,' https://www.finance.idaho.gov/ConsumerFinance/Documents/Idaho-Credit-Code-Fast-Facts-With-Fiscal-Annual-Report-Data-01012015.pdf; Tenn. Dep't of Fin. Inst., 2018 
Report on the Title Pledge Industry, at 4 (Apr. 23, 2018) https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/financialinstitutions/new-docs/TP%20Annual%20Report%202018.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As with payday loans, the States have taken different regulatory 
approaches with respect to single-payment vehicle title loans. 
Seventeen States currently permit single-payment vehicle title 
lending.\69\ Another six States permit title installment loans but 
those loans are not affected by the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
of the 2017 Final Rule.\70\ Three States (Arizona, Georgia, and New 
Hampshire) permit single-payment vehicle title loans but prohibit or 
substantially restrict payday loans.\71\ As with State restrictions on 
payday loans, these State vehicle title laws represent the judgment of 
the various States as to the limitations, if any, that should be placed 
on consumers' ability to choose vehicle title loans within their 
respective jurisdictions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \69\ As noted in the 2017 Final Rule, New Mexico had enacted a 
law in 2017, effective January 1, 2018, that prohibits single-
payment vehicle title loans and allows only installment title 
lending. New Mexico is no longer counted as one of the States 
authorizing single-payment vehicle title loans. See 82 FR 54472, 
54490. Ohio is counted as one of the 17 States but as noted above, a 
bill signed by the governor in 2018 will prohibit lenders from 
making loans of $5,000 or less secured by a vehicle title or any 
other collateral. Ohio lenders must comply with the law as of April 
27, 2019. See https://www.com.ohio.gov/documents/fiin_HB123_Guidance.pdf; see also Ohio House Bill 123, An Act to 
Modify the Short-Term Loan Act, https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA132-HB-123.
    \70\ See 82 FR 54472, 54490. New Mexico is now counted in this 
group as the State allows only title installment lending.
    \71\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Also as with payday loans, some of the States that permit single-
payment vehicle title loans have adopted a

[[Page 4257]]

variety of regulatory provisions governing such loans, including 
limitations on the maximum price \72\ and maximum loan size.\73\ A few 
States regulate reborrowing with either a cooling-off period between 
loans or a mandatory minimum amortization.\74\ A number of State laws 
contain provisions addressing default and repossession including cure 
provisions and provisions governing deficiencies or surpluses if a 
vehicle is repossessed and sold.\75\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \72\ States with a 15 percent to 25 percent per month rate cap 
include Alabama, Georgia (rate decreases after 90 days), 
Mississippi, and New Hampshire. Ala. Code sec. 5-19A-7(a); Ga. Code 
Ann. sec. 44-12-131(a)(4); Miss. Code Ann. sec. 75-67-413(1); N.H. 
Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 399-A:18(I)(f). Tennessee limits interest rates 
to 2 percent per month, but also allows for a fee up to 20 percent 
of the original principal amount. Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 45-15-111(a). 
Virginia's fees (installment title loans) are tiered at 22 percent 
per month for amounts up to $700 and then decrease on larger loans. 
Va. Code Ann. sec. 6.2-2216(A). See also 54472, 54490 & n.184.
    \73\ For example, some maximum vehicle title loan amounts are 
$2,500 in Mississippi and Tennessee, and $5,000 in Missouri. Miss. 
Code Ann. sec. 75-67-415(f); Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 45-15-115(3); Mo. 
Rev. Stat. sec. 367.527(2). Illinois limits the loan amount to 
$4,000 or 50 percent of monthly income, Virginia (installment title 
loans) and Wisconsin limit the loan amount to 50 percent of the 
vehicle's value and Wisconsin also has a $25,000 maximum loan 
amount. Ill. Admin. Code tit. 38, sec. 110.370(a); Va. Code Ann. 
sec. 6.2-2215(1)(d); Wis. Stat. Ann. sec. 138.16(1)(c), (2)(a). 
Examples of States with no limits on loan amounts, limits of the 
amount of the value of the vehicle, or statutes that are silent 
about loan amounts include Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. Ariz. Rev. 
Stat. Ann. sec. 44-291(A); Idaho Code Ann. sec. 28-46-508(3); Utah 
Code Ann. sec. 7-24-202(3)(c). See also 82 FR 54472, 54491.
    \74\ Illinois requires 15 days between title loans. Ill. Admin. 
Code tit. 38, sec. 110.370(c). Delaware requires title lenders to 
offer a workout agreement after default but prior to repossession 
that repays at least 10 percent of the outstanding balance each 
month. Delaware does not cap fees on title loans and interest 
continues to accrue on workout agreements. Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, 
secs. 2255, 2258. New Hampshire law prohibits title lenders from 
making a title loan within 60 days of a prior payday or title loan 
and title loan renewals are permitted up to nine times with at least 
10 percent amortization of the original balance owed. N.H. Rev. 
Stat. Ann. secs. 399-A:18.I(e), 399-A:19.II. See also 82 FR 54472, 
54491 & n.185.
    \75\ For example, Georgia allows repossession fees and storage 
fees. Ga. Code Ann. sec. 44-12-131(a)(4)(C). Arizona, Delaware, 
Idaho, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and 
Wisconsin specify that any surplus must be returned to the borrower. 
Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 47-9608(A)(4); Del. Code Ann. tit. 5, 
sec. 2260; Idaho Code Ann. sec. 28-9-615(d); Mo. Rev. Stat. sec. 
408.553; S.D. Codified Laws sec. 54-4-72; Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 45-
15-114(b)(2); Utah Code Ann. sec. 7-24-204(3); Va. Code Ann. sec. 
6.2-2217(C); Wis. Stat. sec. 138.16(4)(e). Mississippi requires that 
85 percent of any surplus be returned. Miss. Code Ann. sec. 75-67-
411(5). See also 82 FR 54472, 54491 & n.188.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As explained in the 2017 Final Rule, information about the vehicle 
title market is more limited than the storefront payday industry.\76\ 
There are approximately 8,000 title loan storefront locations in the 
United States, about half of which also offer payday loans.\77\ Of 
those locations that predominantly offer vehicle title loans, three 
privately held firms dominate the market and together account for 
approximately 3,000 stores in over 20 States.\78\ In addition to the 
large title lenders, the Bureau estimated that there are about 800 
vehicle title lenders that are small businesses as defined by the 
SBA.\79\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \76\ 82 FR 54472, 54491.
    \77\ See id. at 54491 & n.197, citing Pew Charitable Trusts, 
Auto Title Loans--Market practices and borrowers' experiences 
(2015), https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2015/03/
autotitleloansreport.pdf.
    \78\ The largest vehicle title lender is TMX Finance, LLC, 
formerly known as Title Max Holdings, LLC, with about 1,200 stores. 
See https://www.titlemax.com/store-locator/ and https://www.titlebucks.com/store-locator/ (last visited Feb. 4, 2019) (TMX 
Finance has stores in 16 States and TitleBucks has stores in 6 
States); see also Community Loans of America, https://clacorp.com/about-us (last visited Feb. 4, 2019) (over 1,000 locations in 25 
States); Select Management Resources (roughly 600 stores) (Select 
Management Resources brands include LoanMax, LoanStar Title Loans, 
Midwest Title Loans, and North American Title Loans), https://www.loanmaxtitleloans.net/SiteMap, https://www.loanstartitleloans.net/SiteMap, https://www.midwesttitleloans.net/SiteMap, https://www.northamericantitleloans.net/SiteMap (all last visited Feb. 4, 
2019). Store counts for these three firms may include States with 
stores that offer installment vehicle title loans.
    \79\ 82 FR 54472, 54492 & n.200, explaining that State reports 
have been supplemented with estimates from Center for Responsible 
Lending, revenue information from public filings, and from non-
public sources. See Jean Ann Fox et al., Driven to Disaster: Car-
Title Lending and Its Impact on Consumers, at 7 (Consumer Fed'n of 
Am. and Ctr. for Responsible Lending, 2013), https://www.responsiblelending.org/other-consumer-loans/car-title-loans/research-analysis/CRL-Car-Title-Report-FINAL.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The available evidence suggests that between 1.8 million households 
and 2 million adults use vehicle title loans annually, although these 
studies do not necessarily differentiate between single-payment and 
installment vehicle title loans.\80\ The demographic profiles of 
vehicle title borrowers appear to be roughly comparable to the 
demographics of payday borrowers, which is to say that they tend to be 
lower and moderate income.\81\ In one survey, 30 percent of vehicle 
title borrowers reported that they struggle to meet their expenses most 
or all months and another 20 percent said that was true half the 
time.\82\ The Bureau is not aware of any published research regarding 
the credit profiles of single-payment vehicle title borrowers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \80\ Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 2017 FDIC National Survey of 
Unbanked and Underbanked Households, at 41 (Oct. 2018), https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf. The number of 
households using title loans in the FDIC survey rose from the 1.7 
million households reported in the 2015 survey cited in the 2017 
Final Rule. See Pew Charitable Trusts, Auto Title Loans--Market 
practices and borrowers' experiences, at 33 (2015), https://
www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2015/03/autotitleloansreport.pdf; 
82 FR 54472, 54491 & n.195.
    \81\ Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., 2017 FDIC National Survey of 
Unbanked and Underbanked Households (Oct. 2018), https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf (calculations made 
using custom data tool).
    \82\ Pew Charitable Trusts, Auto Title Loans--Market practices 
and borrowers' experiences, at 6 (2015), https://www.pewtrusts.org/
~/media/assets/2015/03/autotitleloansreport.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As with payday loans, understanding the factors that cause 
consumers to use vehicle title loans is challenging. In one survey, 25 
percent of borrowers attributed their need for a vehicle title loan to 
an unexpected emergency expense, 52 percent attributed their need to 
recurring expenses, and the remainder pointed to other expenses or did 
not know.\83\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \83\ Id. at 7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Vehicle title loans differ from payday loans in at least two 
important respects. First, these loans enable consumers to borrow 
larger amounts: The Bureau's research found that the median vehicle 
title loan amount was $694, or roughly double the size of the median 
payday loan amount.\84\ Second, whereas a payday loan is only available 
to those with a bank account or other transaction account, unbanked 
consumers with clear vehicle title can obtain a vehicle title loan. 
Indeed, some vehicle title lenders do not require a copy of a pay stub 
or other evidence of current income in order to make a loan.\85\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \84\ 82 FR 54472, 54490 & n.182, citing Bureau of Consumer Fin. 
Prot., Single-Payment Vehicle Title Lending, (May 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf.
    \85\ 82 FR 54472, 54490 & n.174.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau's research found that roughly two-thirds of single-
payment vehicle title borrowers repay their loans. Of borrowers who 
repaid, 12 percent of them did so when the initial loan was due and the 
remainder reborrowed one or more times before repaying.\86\ Of 
borrowers who defaulted, roughly 30 percent did so when the loan was 
initially due, while the remainder defaulted after taking out one or 
more subsequent loans.\87\ Borrowers end up taking out at least four 
loans in a row roughly 55 percent of the time, taking out at least 
seven loans roughly 35 percent of the time, and taking out at

[[Page 4258]]

least 10 loans slightly over 20 percent of the time.\88\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \86\ Id. at 54566 & n.531, citing Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., 
Single-Payment Vehicle Title Lending, at 11 (May 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf.
    \87\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Single-Payment Vehicle Title 
Lending, at 11 (May 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf.
    \88\ Id. at 12. The percentage of vehicle title borrowers in 
each of the categories described in the text does not appear to vary 
with different definitions of loan sequences as substantially all 
reborrowing occurs when the loan is due.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Longer-Term Balloon-Payment Loans
    The third category of loans covered by the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule is longer-term balloon-payment loans 
which generally involve a series of small, often interest-only, 
payments followed by a single larger lump sum payment.\89\ In 2017, the 
Bureau noted that there did not appear to be a large market for such 
loans. However, the Bureau expressed the concern that the market for 
these longer-term balloon-payment loans, with structures similar to 
payday loans and that pose similar risks to consumers, might grow if 
only covered short-term loans were regulated under the 2017 Final 
Rule.\90\ Because the market was relatively small, the Bureau 
supplemented its analysis with relevant information on related types of 
covered longer-term loans, such as hybrid payday loans, payday 
installment loans, and vehicle title installment loans.\91\ The profile 
of borrowers in the market for longer-term balloon-payment loans is 
similar to those seeking covered short-term and vehicle title loans--
they also generally have low average incomes, poor credit histories, 
and recent credit-seeking activity.\92\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \89\ 82 FR 54472, 54475. For examples of longer-term balloon-
payment loans, see id. at 54486 & n.143, 54490 & n.179.
    \90\ Id. at 54472, 54527-28.
    \91\ Id. at 54580.
    \92\ Id. at 54581.
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    In analyzing the data that was available, the Bureau found that 
about 60 percent of longer-term balloon-payment loans resulted in 
refinancing, reborrowing, or default.\93\ By contrast, nearly 60 
percent of comparable fully-amortizing installment loans without a 
balloon-payment were repaid without refinancing or reborrowing.\94\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \93\ Id. at 54582.
    \94\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. The Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule

    The SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION accompanying the 2017 Final Rule 
provides an explanation of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
Rule. This part II.B provides a high-level summary of certain of those 
provisions that are most directly relevant to the Bureau's decision to 
propose their reconsideration. The Bureau's rationale for the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions, as set forth in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
accompanying the 2017 Final Rule, is discussed in part V.A below.
    As noted above, the 2017 Final Rule contains, in Sec.  1041.4, an 
identification provision which provides that it is an unfair and 
abusive practice for a lender to make covered short-term loans or 
covered longer-term balloon-payment loans without reasonably 
determining that the consumers will have the ability to repay the loans 
according to their terms.
    Section 1041.5 contains a set of underwriting requirements adopted 
to prevent the unfair and abusive practice. Specifically, Sec.  
1041.5(c)(2) requires lenders making covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loans to obtain a written statement from the consumer 
with respect to the consumer's net income and major financial 
obligations; obtain verification evidence of the consumer's income, if 
reasonably available, and major financial obligations; obtain a report 
from a national consumer reporting agency and a report from a 
registered information system with respect to the consumer; and review 
its own records and the records of its affiliates for evidence of the 
consumer's required payments under any debt obligations. Using these 
inputs, the lender is generally required pursuant to Sec.  1041.5(b) 
and (c)(1) to make a reasonable projection of the consumer's net income 
and payments for major financial obligations over the ensuing 30 days; 
calculate either the consumer's debt-to-income ratio or the consumer's 
residual income; estimate the consumer's basic living expenses; and 
determine based upon the debt-to-income or residual income calculations 
whether the consumer will be able to make the payments for his or her 
payment obligations and the payments under the covered loan and still 
meet the consumer's basic living expenses during the term of the loan 
and for a period of 30 days thereafter.\95\
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    \95\ The Rule defines ``basic living expenses'' and ``major 
financial obligations.'' See 12 CFR 1041.5(a)(1) and (3).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This determination is required each time a consumer returns to take 
out a new loan, although pursuant to Sec.  1041.5(c)(2)(ii)(D) the 
lender generally need not obtain a new national credit report if one 
was obtained within the prior 90 days. If a consumer has obtained three 
loans each within 30 days of the prior loan, pursuant to Sec.  
1041.5(d)(2) the lender cannot make another covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loan for a period of 30 days.
    As also noted above, the 2017 Final Rule contains a conditional 
exemption in Sec.  1041.6 which allows lenders to make covered short-
term loans without an ability-to-repay determination under Sec.  
1041.5. In order to qualify for the conditional exemption, pursuant to 
Sec.  1041.6(b)(1)(i), the principal cannot exceed $500 for the first 
in a sequence of covered short-term loans, and pursuant to Sec.  
1041.6(b)(3) the conditional exemption is not available for vehicle 
title loans. A lender may not make more than three loans in succession 
under this conditional exemption and the loans must provide for a 
``principal step-down'' over the sequence pursuant to Sec.  
1041.6(b)(1)(ii) and (iii) such that the second loan in a sequence can 
be for only two-thirds of the amount of the initial loan and the third 
loan in a sequence for one-third of the initial loan amount.
    Pursuant to Sec.  1041.6(c)(1), a lender cannot make a loan under 
the conditional exemption to a consumer who has had an outstanding 
covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan in the preceding 
30 days. Pursuant to Sec.  1041.6(c)(3), the lender also cannot make a 
loan that would result in the consumer having more than six covered 
short-term loans outstanding during any consecutive 12-month period or 
result in the consumer being in debt on any covered short-term loans 
for longer than 90 days in any consecutive 12-month period. To verify 
the consumer's eligibility, before making a conditionally exempt 
covered short-term loan pursuant to Sec.  1041.6(a), the lender must 
review the consumer's borrowing history in its own records and those of 
its affiliates and obtain a report from a Bureau-registered information 
system to determine a potential loan's compliance with Sec.  1041.6(b) 
and (c).
    Lenders making covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans--including conditionally exempt covered short-term loans--
generally are required to furnish certain information on those loans to 
every registered information system that has been registered with the 
Bureau for 180 days or more. Pursuant to Sec.  1041.10(c)(1), certain 
information must be furnished no later than the date on which the loan 
is consummated or as close in time as feasible thereafter; pursuant to 
Sec.  1041.10(c)(2), updates to such information must be furnished 
within a reasonable period after the event that requires the update.
    In adopting the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, the Bureau 
considered and rejected a number of alternatives to the Mandatory

[[Page 4259]]

Underwriting Provisions, including requiring disclosures, adopting a 
payment-to-income ratio requirement, adopting one of the various State 
law approaches to regulating short-term loans (such as rollover caps, 
less detailed ability-to-repay frameworks, complete bans on short-term 
lending products), and other suggestions from commenters.\96\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \96\ See 82 FR 54472, 54636-40.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

C. The Estimated Impacts of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule

    The SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION accompanying the 2017 Final Rule 
contains regulatory impact analyses, including an analysis of the 
benefits and costs to consumers and covered persons \97\ as required by 
section 1022(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act (also referred to as the 
``section 1022(b)(2) analysis''),\98\ and the final Regulatory 
Flexibility Act analysis (FRFA) \99\ as required by that Act.\100\ The 
Bureau does not here repeat all of that information and those findings. 
Rather, this part summarizes the estimates and conclusions from those 
analyses that the Bureau views as most relevant to its decision to 
propose rescinding the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \97\ See id. at 54814-53.
    \98\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(2)(A).
    \99\ See 82 FR 54472, 54853-70.
    \100\ 5 U.S.C. 601 through 612.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the section 1022(b)(2) analysis for the 2017 Final Rule, the 
Bureau observed that the primary impacts of the Rule on covered persons 
derived mainly from the restrictions on who could obtain payday and 
single-payment vehicle title loans and the number of such loans that 
could be obtained. In order to simulate the impacts of the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions, the Bureau assumed, after reviewing a number 
of studies by the Bureau, Bureau staff, and outside researchers 
concerning payday borrowers, that only 33 percent of current payday and 
vehicle title borrowers would be able to satisfy the Rule's ability-to-
pay requirement when initially applying for a loan and that for each 
succeeding loan in a sequence only one-third of borrowers would satisfy 
the mandatory underwriting requirement (i.e., 11 percent of current 
borrowers for a second loan and 3.5 percent for a third loan).\101\ 
Applying these assumptions to data with respect to current patterns of 
borrowing and reborrowing, the Bureau estimated that, absent the 
conditional exemption in Sec.  1041.6, the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the Rule would reduce payday loan volume and lender 
revenue by approximately 92 to 93 percent relative to lending volumes 
in 2017 and vehicle title volume and lender revenue by between 89 and 
93 percent.\102\ Factoring in the expected effects of the conditional 
exemption, and assuming that payday lenders would endeavor to take full 
advantage of that exemption before seeking to qualify consumers for a 
loan under the mandatory underwriting requirements of Sec.  1041.5, the 
Bureau estimated that the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would 
result in a decrease in the number of payday loans of 55 to 62 percent 
and, because of the step-down feature of the conditional exemption, a 
decrease in payday lender revenue of between 71 and 76 percent.\103\ 
Given that short-term vehicle title loans are not eligible for the 
conditional exemption, the Bureau estimated that the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions would result in a decrease in the number of 
short-term vehicle title loans of between 89 and 93 percent, with an 
equivalent reduction in loan volume and revenue.\104\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \101\ 82 FR 54472, 54826-34.
    \102\ Id. at 54826, 54834.
    \103\ Id. at 54826.
    \104\ Id. at 54834.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau, in its section 1022(b)(2) analysis, determined that 
these revenue impacts would have a substantial effect on the market. 
The Bureau projected that unless lenders were able to replace their 
reduction in revenue with other products, there would be a contraction 
in the number of storefronts of similar magnitude to the contraction in 
revenue, i.e., a contraction of between 71 and 76 percent for 
storefront payday lenders and of between 89 and 93 percent for vehicle 
title lenders.\105\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \105\ Id. at 54835.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the section 1022(b)(2) analysis, the Bureau identified a number 
of impacts that the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would have on 
consumers' ability to access credit. Specifically, the Bureau estimated 
that approximately 6 percent of existing payday borrowers would be 
unable to initiate a new loan because they would have exhausted the 
loans permitted under the conditional exemption and would not be able 
to satisfy the ability-to-repay requirement.\106\ Vehicle title 
borrowers would be more likely to be unable to obtain an initial loan 
because the conditional exemption does not extend to such loans; \107\ 
the Bureau noted that while those borrowers could pursue a payday loan, 
there are two States that permit vehicle title loans but not payday 
loans and that 15 percent of vehicle title borrowers do not have a 
checking account and thus may not be eligible for a payday loan.\108\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \106\ Id. at 54840.
    \107\ Id.
    \108\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the section 1022(b)(2) analysis the Bureau identified, but did 
not quantify, certain other potential impacts of the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions on consumers' access to credit. Consumers 
seeking to borrow more than $500 after the 2017 Final Rule's compliance 
date may find their ability to do so limited because of the cap on the 
initial loan amount under the conditional exemption and because of the 
impact of the Rule on vehicle title loans, which tend to be for larger 
amounts.\109\ Additionally, because of the principal step-down feature 
of the conditional exemption, consumers obtaining loans under that 
exemption would be forced to repay their loans more quickly than they 
do today. The Bureau believed that 40 percent of the reduction in 
payday revenue estimated to result from the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions would be the result of the cap on loan sizes under the 
conditional exemption and the remainder would be the result of the 
restriction on the number of loans available to consumers under that 
exemption coupled with the mandatory underwriting requirement for any 
additional loans.\110\ Finally, the Bureau concluded, based on research 
concerning the implementation of various State regulations, that 
although the reduction in the number of storefronts would not 
substantially affect consumers' geographic access to payday locations 
in most areas, a small share of potential borrowers will lose easy 
access to stores.\111\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \109\ Id. at 54841.
    \110\ Id.
    \111\ Id. at 54842 & n.1224. Research conducted by the Bureau 
had found that in one State where regulatory restrictions resulted 
in a substantial contraction of payday stores, the median distance 
between stores in counties outside of metropolitan areas increased 
from 0.2 miles to 13.9 miles. Supplemental Findings at 87.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau, in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis, went on to observe 
that consumers who are unable to obtain a new loan because they cannot 
satisfy the Rule's mandatory underwriting requirement and have 
exhausted or cannot qualify for a loan under the conditional exemption 
will have reduced access to credit. They may be forced at least in the 
short term to forgo certain purchases, incur high costs from delayed 
payment of existing obligations, incur high costs and other negative 
impacts by simply defaulting on bills, or they may choose to borrow 
from sources

[[Page 4260]]

that are more expensive or otherwise less desirable.\112\ Some 
borrowers may overdraft their checking accounts; depending on the 
amount borrowed, an overdraft on a checking account may be more 
expensive than taking out a payday or single-payment vehicle title 
loan.\113\ Similarly, ``borrowing'' by paying a bill late may lead to 
late fees or other negative consequences like the loss of utility 
service.\114\ Other consumers may turn to friends or family when they 
would rather borrow from a lender.\115\ The Bureau concluded, however, 
that to the extent the 2017 Final Rule's Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions curbed extended borrowing sequences by consumers who did not 
expect such lengthy sequences, those provisions would have a positive 
effect on consumer welfare.\116\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \112\ See 82 FR 54472, 54841.
    \113\ Id.
    \114\ Id.
    \115\ Id.
    \116\ Id. at 54846.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

III. Outreach

    The Bureau has engaged in efforts to monitor and support industry 
implementation since the 2017 Final Rule was issued. As a part of those 
efforts, the Bureau has received input from a number of stakeholders 
regarding various aspects of the 2017 Final Rule. This input has 
included both concerns about lenders' ability to comply with the Rule 
and about the broader effects of various substantive provisions of the 
Rule on covered loans.
    In developing this proposal, the Bureau has taken into account both 
the input it has received from stakeholders through its efforts to 
monitor and support industry implementation of the 2017 Final Rule as 
well as comments received in response to other Bureau initiatives, 
including the Bureau's Call for Evidence series of RFIs issued in 
spring 2018. The issues that the Bureau has determined are appropriate 
to revisit are discussed in detail below.
    Some of the concerns stakeholders have raised to the Bureau are 
outside of the scope of this proposal. For example, the Bureau received 
a rulemaking petition to exempt debit card payments from the Rule's 
Payment Provisions. The Bureau has also received informal requests 
related to various aspects of the Payment Provisions or the Rule as a 
whole, including requests to exempt certain types of lenders or loan 
products from the Rule's coverage and to delay the compliance date for 
the Payment Provisions. The Bureau intends to examine these issues and 
if the Bureau determines that further action is warranted, the Bureau 
will commence a separate rulemaking initiative (such as by issuing an 
RFI or an advance notice of proposed rulemaking).
    Interagency Consultation. As discussed in connection with section 
1022(b)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act below, the Bureau's outreach included 
consultation with other Federal consumer protection and prudential 
regulators. The Bureau has provided other regulators with information 
about the Bureau's proposals, and received feedback that has assisted 
the Bureau in preparing this proposal.
    Consultation with State and Local Officials. The Bureau's outreach 
also included calls with State Attorneys General, State financial 
regulators, and organizations representing the officials charged with 
enforcing applicable Federal, State, and local laws on small-dollar 
loans.
    Tribal Consultations. The Bureau has engaged in consultation with 
Indian tribes about this proposal. The Bureau held a consultation on 
December 19, 2018, at the Bureau's headquarters. All Federally-
recognized Indian tribes were invited to this consultation, which 
generated frank and valuable input from Tribal leaders to Bureau senior 
leadership and staff about the effects such a proposal could have on 
Tribal nations and lenders.
    In the meantime, the Bureau expects to release a small entity 
compliance guide to aid compliance with the Payment Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule. The guide will be published on the Bureau's regulatory 
implementation website for the Rule at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/policy-compliance/guidance/payday-lending-rule/.

IV. Legal Authority

    Part IV of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION that accompanied the 2017 
Final Rule discussed the legal authorities for the Rule.\117\ 
Commenters may refer to that discussion for information about the legal 
background relating to the Rule. Each of the legal authorities that the 
Bureau relied upon in the 2017 Final Rule provides the Bureau with 
discretion to issue rules, and the Bureau preliminarily interprets 
these authorities to permit the Bureau to exercise that discretion to 
rescind a previously issued rule. This part IV summarizes the legal 
authorities that the Bureau views as most relevant to consideration of 
this proposal to rescind the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \117\ 82 FR 54472, 54519-24.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau adopted the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule in principal reliance on the Bureau's authority under 
section 1031(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act.\118\ Section 1031(b) of the 
Dodd-Frank Act provides that the Bureau ``may prescribe rules 
applicable to a covered person or service provider identifying as 
unlawful unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices in connection 
with any transaction with a consumer for a consumer financial product 
or service, or the offering of a consumer financial product or 
service.'' Section 1031(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act further provides that 
rules under section 1031 may include requirements for the purpose of 
preventing such acts or practices.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \118\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(b).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Section 1031(c)(1) of the Dodd-Frank Act provides that the Bureau 
shall have no authority under section 1031 to declare an act or 
practice in connection with a transaction with a consumer for a 
consumer financial product or service, or the offering of a consumer 
financial product or service, to be unlawful on the grounds that such 
act or practice is unfair, unless the Bureau has a reasonable basis to 
conclude that: The act or practice causes or is likely to cause 
substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by 
consumers; and such substantial injury is not outweighed by 
countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition.\119\ As the 
2017 Final Rule explained, the unfairness provisions of the Dodd-Frank 
Act are similar to the unfairness provisions under the Federal Trade 
Commission Act (FTC Act), and the meaning of the Bureau's authority 
under section 1031(b) is informed by the FTC Act unfairness standard 
and FTC and other Federal agency rulemakings.\120\ When applying 
section 1031(c) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau also considers the 
Federal Trade Commission's ``Commission Statement

[[Page 4261]]

of Policy on Scope of Consumer Unfairness Jurisdiction'' (FTC Policy 
Statement), the principles of which Congress generally incorporated 
into section 5 of the FTC Act.\121\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \119\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(c)(1). Additionally, section 1031(c)(2) of 
the Dodd-Frank Act provides that in determining whether an act or 
practice is unfair, the Bureau may consider established public 
policies as evidence to be considered with all other evidence. Such 
public policy considerations may not serve as a primary basis for 
such determination. 12 U.S.C. 5531(c)(2).
    \120\ 82 FR 54472, 54520. See also 15 U.S.C. 41 et seq. Section 
5(n) of the FTC Act, as amended in 1994, provides that the Federal 
Trade Commission (FTC) shall have no authority to declare unlawful 
an act or practice on the grounds that such act or practice is 
unfair unless the act or practice causes or is likely to cause 
substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by 
consumers themselves and not outweighed by countervailing benefits 
to consumers or to competition. In determining whether an act or 
practice is unfair, the FTC may consider established public policies 
as evidence to be considered with all other evidence. Such public 
policy considerations may not serve as a primary basis for such 
determination. 15 U.S.C. 45(n).
    \121\ See Letter from the FTC to Hon. Wendell Ford and Hon. John 
Danforth, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, United 
States Senate, Commission Statement of Policy on the Scope of 
Consumer Unfairness Jurisdiction (Dec. 17, 1980), reprinted in In re 
Int'l Harvester Co., 104 F.T.C. 949, 1070-88 (1984); see also S. 
Rep. No. 103-130, at 12-13 (1993) (legislative history to FTC Act 
amendments indicating congressional intent to codify the principles 
of the FTC Policy Statement).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Under section 1031(d) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau ``shall 
have no authority . . . . to declare an act or practice abusive in 
connection with the provision of a consumer financial product or 
service'' unless the act or practice meets at least one of several 
enumerated conditions.\122\ Section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act 
provides, in pertinent part, that an act or practice is abusive when it 
takes unreasonable advantage of (1) a consumer's lack of understanding 
of the material risks, costs, or conditions of the product or service; 
or (2) a consumer's inability to protect the interests of the consumer 
in selecting or using a consumer financial product or service.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \122\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(d).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau's reasons for proposing to rescind its use of unfairness 
and abusiveness authority in the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions are 
discussed in parts V.B and V.C below.
    In addition to section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau 
relied on other legal authorities for certain aspects of the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule.\123\ These include the 
conditional exemption for certain loans in Sec.  1041.6; two provisions 
(Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11) that facilitate lenders' ability to 
obtain certain information about consumers' borrowing history from 
information systems that have registered with the Bureau; and certain 
recordkeeping requirements in Sec.  1041.12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \123\ See 82 FR 54472, 54522.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In adopting each of these provisions, the Bureau relied on one or 
more of the following authorities. Section 1022(b)(3)(A) of the Dodd-
Frank Act authorizes the Bureau, by rule, to conditionally or 
unconditionally exempt any class of covered persons, service providers, 
or consumer financial products or services from any rule issued under 
Title X, which includes a rule issued under section 1031, as the Bureau 
determines is necessary or appropriate to carry out the purposes and 
objectives of Title X. In doing so, the Bureau must take into 
consideration the factors set forth in section 1022(b)(3)(B) of the 
Dodd-Frank Act.\124\ Section 1022(b)(3)(B) specifies three factors that 
the Bureau shall, as appropriate, take into consideration in issuing 
such an exemption.\125\ The Bureau also relied, in adopting certain 
provisions, on its authority under section 1022(b)(1) of the Dodd-Frank 
Act to prescribe rules as may be necessary or appropriate to enable the 
Bureau to administer and carry out the purposes and objectives of the 
Federal consumer financial laws.\126\ The term Federal consumer 
financial law includes rules prescribed under Title X of the Dodd-Frank 
Act, including those prescribed under section 1031.\127\ Additionally, 
in the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau relied, for certain provisions, on 
other authorities, including those in sections 1021(c)(3), 1022(c)(7), 
1024(b)(7), and 1032 of the Dodd-Frank Act.\128\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \124\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(3)(A).
    \125\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(3)(B).
    \126\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(1). The Bureau also interprets section 
1022(b)(1) of the Dodd-Frank Act as authorizing it to rescind or 
amend a previously issued rule if it determines such rule is not 
necessary or appropriate to enable the Bureau to administer and 
carry out the purposes and objectives of the Federal consumer 
financial laws, including a rule issued to identify and prevent 
unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices.
    \127\ 12 U.S.C. 5481(14).
    \128\ 12 U.S.C. 5511(c)(3), 12 U.S.C. 5512(c)(7), 12 U.S.C. 
5514(b)(7), and 12 U.S.C. 5522.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau's decisions to use these authorities were premised on 
its decision to use its authority under section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank 
Act. If the Bureau decides to rescind its use of section 1031 authority 
in the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, the Bureau preliminarily 
concludes that it should also rescind its uses of these other 
authorities in the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions. The specific 
provisions of the 2017 Final Rule that the Bureau is proposing to 
rescind are discussed further in the section-by-section analysis in 
part VI below.

V. Explanation of the Bases for This Proposal To Rescind the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule

    This part explains the Bureau's reasons for proposing to rescind 
the use of its unfairness and abusiveness authority under section 1031 
of the Dodd-Frank Act in the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule. Part V.A reviews certain of the factual predicates and 
legal conclusions underlying this use of authority. Part V.B sets forth 
the Bureau's reasons for preliminarily concluding that the Bureau 
should require more robust and reliable evidence than it supplied in 
the 2017 Final Rule to support those factual predicates. Part V.C sets 
forth the Bureau's additional reasons for preliminarily determining 
that, under sections 1031(c) and (d) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau 
no longer identifies an unfair and abusive practice as set out in Sec.  
1041.4 of the 2017 Final Rule.\129\ In part V.D, the Bureau discusses 
its consideration of alternatives. In part V.E, the Bureau concludes 
its analysis and requests comments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \129\ The Bureau notes that, alongside covered short-term loans, 
the 2017 Final Rule included covered longer-term balloon-payment 
loans within the scope of the identified unfair and abusive 
practice. The Bureau stated that it was concerned that the market 
for covered longer-term balloon-payment loans, which is currently 
quite small, could expand dramatically if lenders were to circumvent 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions by making these loans without 
assessing borrowers' ability to repay. 82 FR 54472, 54583-84. The 
Bureau did not separately analyze the elements of unfairness and 
abusiveness for covered longer-term balloon-payment loans. See id. 
at 54583 n.626. Because the Bureau's identification in the Rule as 
to covered longer-term balloon-payment loans was predicated on its 
identification as to covered short-term loans, the Bureau 
preliminarily believes that if the latter is rescinded the former 
should also be rescinded.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Before addressing these factual and legal issues, the Bureau offers 
a few preliminary observations to place this rulemaking in its proper 
context.
    Consumers living paycheck to paycheck and with little to no savings 
to fall back on face challenging financial lives. The Bureau's research 
has demonstrated that liquid savings and the ability to absorb a 
financial shock are closely tied to financial well-being.\130\ A major 
focus of the Bureau's consumer education efforts has been, and 
continues to be, on encouraging savings among consumers. The Bureau 
also continues to conduct research to understand the efficacy of 
alternative methods of promoting savings \131\ and, more generally, to 
better understand the specific events that can cause consumers to 
struggle to make ends meet and the choices consumers face in these 
circumstances.\132\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \130\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Financial well-being in 
America, at 48-49 (2017), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201709_cfpb_financial-well-being-in-America.pdf.
    \131\ The Bureau has published a study of a randomized control 
trial testing alternative means of encouraging consumers with a 
prepaid card to place some of their income into a savings vehicle. 
See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Tools for saving: Using prepaid 
accounts to set aside funds (2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/092016_cfpb_ToolsForSavingPrepaidAccounts.pdf. The Bureau also is 
studying alternative means of encouraging savings of tax refunds in 
a research partnership with a major tax preparer.
    \132\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Making Ends Meet Survey, 
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/making-ends-meet-survey/ (``Many households run out of money at one time or another 
and this survey is designed to help us understand consumer 
experiences and decisions when money gets tight. Since people's 
experiences can vary widely, please fill out the survey even if you 
have not borrowed or run out of money. The information you provide 
will help shape federal policies to ensure that everyone is treated 
fairly and respectfully when they borrow money to make ends 
meet.'').

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page 4262]]

    At the same time, the Bureau recognizes that a substantial number 
of households do not have the ability to withstand financial shocks 
without the use of credit or other alternatives, such as obtaining 
money from friends or relatives, cutting back on expenses, or pawning 
personal property. The Bureau is committed to ensuring that all 
consumers have access to consumer financial products and services and 
that the market for ``liquidity loan products'' is fair, transparent, 
and competitive.\133\ For example, the Bureau continues to exercise 
supervisory and enforcement authority over lenders in this market and 
the Bureau has brought a number of enforcement actions in the past year 
against payday lenders that the Bureau determined were engaged in 
deceptive or other unlawful conduct.\134\ The Bureau also continues to 
monitor this market for risks to consumers and to consider ways of 
assuring that consumers receive timely and understandable information 
to make responsible decisions regarding their use of these 
products.\135\ Further, the Bureau has expressed its support for the 
efforts of other regulators to encourage depository institutions to 
offer credit products for consumers struggling to make ends meet,\136\ 
and the Bureau's newly-created Office of Innovation plans to work with 
financial technology (fintech) firms seeking to enter the market for 
liquidity lending and enhance the competitiveness of the market.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \133\ See 12 U.S.C. 1021(a).
    \134\ See, e.g., In the Matter of Cash Express, LLC, Consent 
Order, CFPB No. 2018-BCFP-0007 (Oct. 24, 2018), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/bcfp_cash-express-llc_consent-order_2018-10.pdf; Stipulated Final Judgment and Order, CFPB v. 
Moseley, Case No. 4:14-cv-00789-SRB (W.D. Mo. Aug. 10, 2018), 
https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/bcfp_hydra_stipulated-final-judgment-order_2018-08.pdf; In the Matter of Triton Management 
Group, Inc., et al., Consent Order, CFPB No. 2018-BCFP-0005 (July 
19, 2018), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/bcfp_triton-management-group_consent-order_2018-07.pdf; In the 
Matter of Enova Int'l, Inc., Consent Order, CFPB No. 2019-BCFP-0003 
(Jan. 25, 2019), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_enova-international_consent-order_2019-01.pdf.
    \135\ See 12 U.S.C. 5512(c) and 5511(b)(1).
    \136\ See Press Release, Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Bureau 
Acting Director Mulvaney Statement on the OCC Short-Term, Small-
Dollar Lending Announcement (May 23, 2018), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/bureau-acting-director-mulvaney-statement-occ-short-term-small-dollar-lending-announcement/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Mandatory Underwriting Provisions in the 2017 Final Rule, in 
contrast to the Bureau's efforts discussed above to increase credit 
access and competition in credit markets, would have the effect of 
restricting access to credit and reducing competition for these 
products. Moreover, the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would impose 
requirements that would have the effect of reducing credit access and 
competition in the States which have determined it is in their 
citizens' interest to be able to use such products, subject to State-
law limitations. For the reasons that follow, the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that neither the evidence cited nor legal reasons provided in 
the 2017 Final Rule support its determination that the identified 
practice is unfair and abusive, thereby eliminating the basis for the 
2017 Final Rule's Mandatory Underwriting Provisions to address that 
conduct.
    The Bureau notes that, even if it were to finalize the proposed 
revocation of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, doing so would not 
preclude the agency in the future from imposing one or more 
alternatives to these provisions, provided that the Bureau has the 
necessary and appropriate factual and legal bases for doing so.

A. Overview of the Factual Predicates and Legal Conclusions Underlying 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule

1. Unfairness
    As noted above, section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act states 
that the Bureau has no authority to declare an act or practice to be 
unfair unless the Bureau has a reasonable basis to conclude that the 
act or practice causes or is likely to cause substantial injury which 
is not reasonably avoidable by consumers and that such substantial 
injury is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to 
competition.\137\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \137\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(c)(1).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau found that the practice of 
making covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loans to 
consumers without determining if the consumers have the ability to 
repay causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers. The 
Bureau reasoned that where lenders were engaged in this identified 
practice and the consumer in fact lacks the ability to repay, the 
consumer will face choices--default, delinquency, and reborrowing, as 
well as the negative collateral consequences of being forced to forgo 
major financial obligations or basic living expenses to cover the 
unaffordable loan payment--each of which the Bureau found in the 2017 
Final Rule leads to injury for many of these consumers.\138\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \138\ 82 FR 54472, 54590-94.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau went on to address the issue of whether the substantial 
injury that the Bureau had found was reasonably avoidable by consumers. 
The Bureau stated that under section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank 
Act for an injury to be reasonably avoidable consumers must ``have 
reasons generally to anticipate the likelihood and severity of the 
injury and the practical means to avoid it.'' \139\ The Bureau added: 
``[t]he heart of the matter here is consumer perception of risk, and 
whether borrowers are in [a] position to gauge the likelihood and 
severity of the risks they incur by taking out covered short-term loans 
in the absence of any reasonable assessment of their ability to repay 
those loans according to their terms.'' \140\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \139\ Id. at 54594.
    \140\ Id. at 54597.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In applying this standard, the 2017 Final Rule focused on 
borrowers' ability to predict their individual outcomes prior to taking 
out loans. The Bureau acknowledged that ``is possible that many 
borrowers accurately anticipate their debt duration.'' \141\ However, 
the Bureau stated that its ``primary concern is for those longer-term 
borrowers who find themselves in extended loan sequences'' and that for 
those borrowers ``the picture is quite different, and their ability to 
estimate accurately what will happen to them when they take out a 
payday loan is quite limited.'' \142\ That led the Bureau to conclude 
that ``many consumers do not understand or perceive the probability 
that certain harms will occur'' \143\ and that therefore it would not 
be reasonable to expect consumers to take steps to avoid injury.\144\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \141\ Id.
    \142\ Id.
    \143\ Id.
    \144\ Id. at 54594.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau based that finding in the 2017 Final Rule primarily on 
its interpretation of limited data from a study by Professor Ronald 
Mann (Mann Study), which compared consumers' predictions when taking 
out a payday loan about how long they would be in debt with 
administrative data from lenders showing the actual time consumers were 
in debt.\145\ The Bureau

[[Page 4263]]

stated that its interpretation of the limited data from this study 
``provides the most relevant data describing borrowers' expected 
durations of indebtedness with payday loan products.'' \146\ The Mann 
Study is discussed further in part V.B.1 below.\147\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \145\ Ronald Mann, Assessing the Optimism of Payday Loan 
Borrowers, 21 Supreme Court Econ. Rev. 105 (2013), discussed at 82 
FR 54472, 54568-70, 54592, 54597; see also id. at 54816-17, 54836-37 
(section 1022(b)(2) analysis discussion of the Mann Study).
    \146\ 82 FR 54472, 54816.
    \147\ The Bureau also referenced two academic studies, one of 
which compared borrowers' belief about the average borrower with 
data about the average outcome of borrowers and the other of which 
compared borrowers' predictions of their own borrowing with average 
outcomes of borrowers in another State. These studies found that 
borrowers appear, on average, somewhat optimistic about the length 
of their indebtedness. See 82 FR 54472, 54568, 54836. However, the 
Bureau noted the weaknesses of these studies, id. at 54568, and, as 
discussed, relied primarily on the Mann Study.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In further support of the finding in the 2017 Final Rule that some 
consumers were not in a position to evaluate the likelihood and 
severity of these risks and therefore it would not be reasonable to 
expect consumers to take steps to avoid the injury, the Bureau in the 
2017 Final Rule relied on other findings, including those related to 
the marketing and servicing practices of providers of short-term 
loans,\148\ and on the Bureau's own expertise and experience in 
supervisory matters and enforcement actions concerning covered lenders 
in the markets for covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans.\149\ These additional factors are discussed in detail in part 
V.B.2 below.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \148\ See, e.g., id. at 54616.
    \149\ Id. at 54505-07.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Abusiveness

    Section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act states in pertinent part 
that the Bureau shall have no authority to declare an act or practice 
abusive unless the act or practice ``takes unreasonable advantage'' of 
either (A) ``a lack of understanding on the part of the consumer of the 
material risks, costs, or conditions of the product or service''; or 
(B) ``the inability of the consumer to protect the interests of the 
consumer in selecting or using a consumer financial product or 
service.'' \150\ The Bureau, in imposing the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule, relied on both of these prongs of 
the abusiveness definition.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \150\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(d)(2)(A), (B). Section 1031(d)(1) and 
(d)(2)(C) of the Dodd-Frank Act provide alternative grounds on which 
a practice may be deemed to be abusive but the Bureau did not rely 
on either of those grounds for the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
of the 2017 Final Rule.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    With respect to the ``lack of understanding'' prong set forth in 
section 1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau acknowledged in 
the 2017 Final Rule that consumers who take out covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loans ``typically understand that they are 
incurring a debt which must be repaid within a prescribed period of 
time and that if they are unable to do so they will either have to make 
other arrangements or suffer adverse consequences.'' \151\ However, in 
the 2017 Final Rule the Bureau interpreted ``understanding'' to require 
more than a general awareness of possible negative outcomes. Rather, 
the Bureau stated that consumers lack the requisite level of 
understanding if they do not understand both their own individual 
``likelihood of being exposed to the risks'' of the product or service 
in question and ``the severity of the kinds of costs and harms that may 
occur.'' \152\ The Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule found that ``a 
substantial portion of borrowers, and especially those who end up in 
extended loan sequences, are not able to predict accurately how likely 
they are to reborrow.'' \153\ This finding also was based primarily on 
the Bureau's interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study and is 
discussed further below.\154\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \151\ 82 FR 54472, 54615 (summarizing the Bureau's rationale for 
the 2016 Proposal).
    \152\ Id. at 54617.
    \153\ Id. at 54615.
    \154\ See id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    With respect to the alternative ``inability to protect'' prong of 
abusiveness set forth in section 1031(d)(2)(B) of the Dodd-Frank Act, 
the Bureau began by finding in the 2017 Final Rule that consumers who 
lack an understanding of the material costs and risks of a product 
often will be unable to protect their interests.\155\ The Bureau's 
analysis found that consumers who use short-term loans ``are 
financially vulnerable and have very limited access to other sources of 
credit'' and that they have an ``urgent need for funds, lack of 
awareness or availability of better alternatives, and no time to shop 
for such alternatives.'' \156\ The Bureau also found in the 2017 Final 
Rule that consumers who take out an initial loan without the lender's 
reasonably assessing the borrower's ability to repay were generally 
unable to protect their interests in selecting or using further 
loans.\157\ According to the Bureau, consumers who obtain loans without 
an ability-to-pay determination and who in fact lack the ability to 
repay may have to choose between competing injuries--default, 
delinquency, reborrowing, and default avoidance costs, including 
forgoing essential living expenses.\158\ The Bureau concluded that, 
``though borrowers of covered loans are not irrational and may 
generally understand their basic terms, these facts do[ ] not put 
borrowers in a position to protect their interests.'' \159\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \155\ Id. at 54618.
    \156\ Id. at 54618-20.
    \157\ Id. at 54619.
    \158\ Id.
    \159\ Id. at 54620.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In support of the conclusion that consumers with payday loans could 
not protect their own interests, the Bureau relied in the 2017 Final 
Rule primarily on a survey of payday borrowers conducted by the Pew 
Charitable Trusts (Pew Study).\160\ In the Pew Study, 37 percent of 
borrowers reported that at some point in their lives they had been in 
such financial distress that they would have taken a payday loan on 
``any terms offered.'' \161\ The Bureau viewed this study as showing 
that borrowers of short-term loans ``may determine that a covered loan 
is the only option they have.'' \162\ The Pew Study is discussed 
further below in part V.B.3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \160\ Pew Charitable Trusts, How Borrowers Choose and Repay 
Payday Loans (2013), http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2013/
02/20/pew_choosing_borrowing_payday_feb2013-(1).pdf.
    \161\ See id., citing the Pew Study at 20; see also 82 FR 54472, 
54618-19 (further discussing the Pew Study).
    \162\ 82 FR 54472, 54619.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    After determining that consumers lack understanding of the material 
risks, costs, or conditions of covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans and that consumers are unable to protect their 
interests in selecting or using such products, the Bureau went on to 
conclude in the 2017 Final Rule that by making such loans to consumers 
without first assessing the consumers' ability to repay, lenders took 
unreasonable advantage of these consumer vulnerabilities. In reaching 
this conclusion, the Bureau acknowledged that section 1031(d) of the 
Dodd-Frank Act ``does not prohibit financial institutions from taking 
advantage of their superior knowledge or bargaining power'' and that 
``in a market economy, market participants with such advantages 
generally pursue their self-interests.'' \163\ The Bureau reasoned, 
however, that section 1031(d) of the Dodd-Frank Act ``makes plain that 
there comes a point at which a financial institution's conduct in 
leveraging its superior information or bargaining power becomes 
unreasonable advantage-taking'' and the Bureau understood the statute 
to delegate to the Bureau ``the responsibility for

[[Page 4264]]

determining when that line has been crossed.'' \164\ The Bureau in the 
2017 Final Rule did not identify any specific threshold but nonetheless 
found that ``many lenders who make such loans have crossed the 
threshold.'' \165\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \163\ Id. at 54621.
    \164\ Id.
    \165\ Id. at 54622.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In support of its conclusion that lenders take unreasonable 
advantage of consumers of covered short-term and longer-term balloon-
payment loans, the Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule pointed to a range of 
lender practices including the design of the loan products, the way 
they are marketed, the absence of underwriting, the limited repayment 
options and the way those are presented to consumers, and the 
collection tactics used when consumers fail to repay.\166\ The Bureau 
stated that ``the ways lenders have structured their lending practices 
here fall well within any reasonable definition'' of what it means to 
take unreasonable advantage under section 1031(d) of the Dodd-Frank 
Act.\167\ The Bureau then singled out specifically the failure to 
underwrite and concluded that lenders take unreasonable advantage in 
circumstances if they make covered short-term loans or covered longer-
term balloon-payment loans without reasonably assessing the consumer's 
ability to repay the loan according to its terms.\168\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \166\ Id. at 54622-23.
    \167\ Id. at 54623.
    \168\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. Reconsidering the Evidence for the Factual Findings in Light of the 
Impacts of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions

    In questioning here whether the evidence is sufficient for the 
Bureau's factual findings necessary to support the determinations that 
the identified practice was unfair and abusive and thereby warrants the 
imposition of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final 
Rule, the Bureau is not addressing whether the evidence supporting the 
factual findings in the 2017 Final Rule would be sufficient to 
withstand judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act 
(APA).\169\ Here, even if the evidence is sufficient for the factual 
findings necessary to support the Bureau's unfairness and abusiveness 
determinations on which the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions are 
based, the Bureau believes it is prudent as a policy matter to require 
a more robust and reliable evidentiary basis to support key findings in 
a rule that would eliminate most covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans and providers from the marketplace, thus 
restricting consumer access to these products.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \169\ 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As explained in part II.C, in the regulatory impact analyses 
accompanying the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau estimated that the 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would have dramatic effects on the 
market for payday and single-payment vehicle title loans and on 
consumers who use those products. The Bureau estimated that the 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would result in a large (55 to 62 
percent) contraction of the storefront payday industry--an industry 
that includes over 2,400 small businesses--and the virtually complete 
elimination of the single-payment vehicle title industry--an industry 
that includes over 800 small businesses.\170\ The Bureau further 
estimated in the 2017 Final Rule that, of the current set of payday 
borrowers, 6 percent would not be able to initiate a payday loan 
sequence to meet a borrowing need and that 15 percent or more of 
vehicle title borrowers would not be able to obtain short-term 
loans.\171\ The Bureau further acknowledged that additional borrowers 
who could obtain loans might nevertheless be unable to borrow the 
amount of money they needed, and that many borrowers would likely be 
required to repay their loans more quickly than prior to the Rule--a 
requirement that could create financial hardship for such 
consumers.\172\ In short, the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
Rule would impose substantial burdens on industry, significantly 
constrain lenders' offering of products, and substantially restrict 
consumer choice and access to credit. All this would occur 
notwithstanding the judgments that the various States have made to 
permit lenders to offer and consumers to choose such products subject 
to certain limitations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \170\ 82 FR 54472, 54479, 54492.
    \171\ Id. at 54609. Specifically, the Bureau noted in the 2017 
Final Rule that two States that permit vehicle title lending do not 
permit payday lending. In addition, 15 percent of vehicle title 
borrowers do not have a checking account, and thus may not be 
eligible for a payday loan. Id. at 54840.
    \172\ Id. at 54840-41.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that the dramatic effects on 
consumers' ability to choose credit and on lenders' ability to offer 
them such credit that would follow from prohibiting the identified 
practice has significant implications for how the Bureau ought to 
assess the evidentiary support for the predicate factual findings. For 
purposes of this rulemaking proposal, the Bureau need not reconsider 
that the 2017 Final Rule found that the identified practice causes or 
is likely to cause substantial injury. However, the Bureau is concerned 
about whether the evidence in this instance provides a ``reasonable 
basis'' to find that (1) the identified injury ``is not reasonably 
avoidable by consumers'' for purposes of an unfairness analysis; (2) 
that there is either a ``lack of understanding on the part of the 
consumer of the material risks, costs, or conditions of the product or 
service'' or an ``inability of the consumer to protect the interests of 
the consumer in selecting or using a consumer financial product or 
service'' for purposes of an abusiveness analysis.\173\ The FTC Policy 
Statement explained that reasonable avoidability for purposes of 
unfairness analysis is premised on the fact that ``[n]ormally we expect 
the marketplace to be self-correcting, and we rely on consumer choice--
the ability of individual consumers to make their own private 
purchasing decisions without regulatory intervention--to govern the 
market.'' \174\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \173\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(c), (d).
    \174\ See FTC Policy Statement, Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. 949, 
1074.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If a rule could have such dramatic impacts on consumer choice and 
access to credit, the Bureau preliminarily believes that it would be 
reasonable under the Dodd-Frank Act and prudent to have robust and 
reliable evidence to support the key finding that consumers cannot 
reasonably avoid that injury. Similarly, the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that it would be reasonable under the Dodd-Frank Act and 
prudent to have robust and reliable evidence to support key findings of 
about ``lack of understanding'' and an ``inability to protect'' as 
needed to establish abusiveness.
    Accordingly, the Bureau preliminarily concludes that it should have 
a robust and reliable evidentiary basis for key findings with respect 
to ``reasonable avoidability,'' ``lack of understanding,'' and 
``inability to protect'' that are essential to the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions in the 2017 Final Rule. For the reasons 
discussed below, the Bureau preliminarily believes that the evidence on 
which the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule 
rests is not sufficiently robust and reliable to support such findings 
regardless of whether it would be sufficient to withstand judicial 
review under the APA, and that rescission of the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions is therefore appropriate.

[[Page 4265]]

1. The Mann Study and the Findings Based on It
    As discussed in part V.A.1, in determining that the identified 
practice is unfair, in the 2017 Final Rule the Bureau concluded, as 
required by section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act, that the 
practice causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers 
and that this injury is not reasonably avoidable by consumers.\175\ 
That latter determination rested on the Bureau's finding that many 
consumers do not have a specific understanding of their personal risks 
and cannot accurately predict how long they will be in debt after 
taking out covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loans.\176\ That finding was based primarily on the Bureau's 
interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study, which the Bureau 
described in the 2017 Final Rule as providing the most relevant data 
describing borrowers' expected durations of indebtedness with payday 
loan products.\177\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \175\ 82 FR 54472, 54596.
    \176\ Id. at 54597.
    \177\ Id. at 54816.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Similarly, as discussed in part V.A.2, in determining that the 
practice of making covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loans without assessing consumers' ability to repay is abusive under 
section 1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau found in the 
2017 Final Rule that many consumers do not understand the material 
risks, cost, or conditions of such loans, because they do not have a 
specific understanding of their individualized risk and cannot 
accurately predict how long they will be in debt after taking out these 
loans.\178\ That finding, too, was based primarily on the Bureau's 
interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study.\179\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \178\ Id. at 54597.
    \179\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the Mann Study, a set of consumers, when applying for a loan, 
completed a survey that asked for their expectations as to the length 
of time they would be in debt after taking out the loan. Professor Mann 
compared those answers to administrative data from lenders showing the 
total length of time it took for the borrower to pay off the loan and 
not reborrow from the same lender for a full pay period.\180\ Based on 
his analysis of the data, Professor Mann concluded that most borrowers 
anticipate that they will not be free of debt at the end of the initial 
loan term and instead will need to reborrow.\181\ He also concluded 
that borrowers' estimates of an ultimate repayment date ``are 
realistic.'' \182\ Professor Mann further concluded that this evidence 
indicates that most borrowers ``have a good understanding of their own 
use of the product.'' \183\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \180\ See Mann Study at 117.
    \181\ Id. at 128.
    \182\ Id. at 109.
    \183\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau acknowledged Professor Mann's 
quantitative findings but ``dispute[d] his interpretation of those 
findings.'' \184\ Professor Mann provided the Bureau with certain 
charts and graphs from his study, including scatterplots of borrowers' 
reborrowing expectations and outcomes.\185\ The Bureau analyzed these 
materials and concluded based on them that borrowers who experienced 
very long reborrowing sequences do not anticipate these outcomes and 
that, in general, borrowers' predictions of their outcomes were 
uncorrelated with their outcomes.\186\ The Bureau noted, for example, 
that based on the limited materials it received from Professor Mann, 
none of the borrowers who experienced sequences of longer than 140 days 
(10 biweekly loans) predicted that outcome, and that none of the 
borrowers who predicted such an outcome actually experienced it.\187\ 
The Bureau further stated in the 2017 Final Rule that its analysis of 
these limited materials found no correlation between individual 
consumers' predictions of their outcomes and their actual 
outcomes.\188\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \184\ 82 FR 54472, 54836. The Bureau specifically relied on a 
scatterplot provided by Professor Mann depicting his respondents' 
predicted durations of indebtedness vs. the time they actually spent 
in debt, and the corresponding regression line. Professor Mann also 
provided the Bureau with other data, including histograms of his 
respondents' days to clearance, prediction errors, borrowing 
experience, etc. However, the Bureau did not have access to the 
complete data from Professor Mann's study, including individual-
level survey responses that would allow the data provided in the 
figures to be linked to the other information collected in the Mann 
Study.
    \185\ See 82 FR 54472, 54836 nn.1190-91.
    \186\ Id. at 54836-37; see also id. at 54569.
    \187\ Id. at 54569.
    \188\ Id. at 54570.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau initially offered its interpretation of limited data 
from the Mann Study in its 2016 Proposal.\189\ In response, Professor 
Mann submitted a comment taking issue with the Bureau's analysis. In 
his comment, Professor Mann observed that the Bureau had made 
``substantial use'' of his study but described the Bureau's use of the 
work as ``inaccurate and misleading,'' and deemed the Bureau's summary 
of his work ``unrecognizable.'' \190\ In issuing the Rule, the Bureau 
discussed Professor Mann's comment and concluded that his objections 
``reflect more of a difference in emphasis than a disagreement over the 
facts.'' \191\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \189\ See 81 FR 47864, 47928-29.
    \190\ Comment submitted by Ronald Mann, Docket No. CFPB-2016-
0025-141822, at 1.
    \191\ 82 FR 54472, 54569.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Upon further consideration, there are clear limitations to the Mann 
Study which the Bureau now believes undermine the reliability and 
probative value of the Bureau's interpretation of the limited data it 
received from Professor Mann as the main basis for the Bureau to make 
findings concerning consumer awareness of potential outcomes from 
taking out payday loans from payday lenders throughout the United 
States. The Mann Study involved a single payday lender in just five 
States and was administered at a limited number of locations.\192\ A 
study focusing on a single lender or limited number of lenders may not 
necessarily be representative of the variety of payday lenders across 
the United States. In addition, these five States also are not 
necessarily representative of payday lending nationally.\193\ Thus, the 
Mann Study's findings and the Bureau's interpretation of limited data 
from that study are most informative about what prospective customers 
of this single lender at these locations in these States understood 
about how long they would need to borrow. While the Mann Study may 
provide useful insights as to these potential customers, consumers 
using other lenders or in other places might or might not have the same 
understanding as those in the Mann Study. Because consumer 
understandings and expectations may be informed by the information 
consumers are provided--and because that information can vary from 
lender to lender and State to State \194\--the Bureau preliminarily 
concludes the Mann Study and the Bureau's interpretation of limited 
data from that study are not a sufficiently robust and representative 
basis to make general findings about all lenders making payday loans to 
all borrowers in all States, let alone to generalize about borrowers 
using short-term vehicle title

[[Page 4266]]

loans or other types of covered short-term or longer-term balloon-
payment loans, which the Mann Study and the Bureau's interpretation of 
limited data from that study did not even address.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \192\ See Mann Study at 116.
    \193\ The Mann Study noted that rollover loans are technically 
prohibited in all five of the States in which payday borrowers were 
surveyed. Mann Study at 114. Further, same-day rollover transactions 
are not possible in Florida, which has a 24-hour cooling-off period, 
and are limited in Louisiana, which permitted rollovers only upon 
partial payment of the principal. Id. Over half of the survey 
participants were in Florida and Louisiana alone. Id. at 117 & tbl. 
1.
    \194\ 82 FR 54472, 54486 (identifying detailed disclosures 
required of payday lenders under Texas law), and id. at 54577 
(noting that some jurisdictions require lenders to provide specific 
disclosures in order to alert borrowers of potential risks).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For all of these reasons, the Bureau is now reconsidering its 
decision to rely so heavily on its interpretation of limited data from 
a study with such a narrow focus as the basis for a rule with effects 
of the magnitude of those estimated to arise from the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule. In this case, more 
research asking consumers about their ex ante understanding of their 
own, or others', expected outcomes, and possibly various measures of 
these distributions, would increase the evidentiary base. Without 
additional research involving more lenders and more locations, it is 
difficult to be confident that the conclusions that the Bureau drew in 
the 2017 Final Rule from its interpretations of the limited data from 
the Mann Study can be applied generally to payday lenders and payday 
loans across the United States. Consequently, the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that, especially given the dramatic market impacts of the 2017 
Final Rule's Mandatory Underwriting Provisions on the future ability of 
consumers who want to do so to choose these products, the Mann Study's 
findings and the Bureau's interpretation of limited data from that 
study were not adequately robust and representative to serve as the 
primary basis of the Bureau's findings. Additionally, the Bureau notes 
that in two industry-sponsored surveys conducted of consumers who had 
successfully paid off a payday loan, the overwhelming majority of 
respondents reported that when they took out their first loan they 
understood well or quite well how long it would take to ``completely 
repay the loan'' and that they were able to repay their loan in the 
amount of time expected.\195\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \195\ See id. at 54570 (discussing studies). The 2017 Final Rule 
noted a number of limitations in these studies, including a sampling 
bias resulting from surveying only successful repayers and the fact 
that these were ex post surveys asking about expectations at an 
earlier point in time. Id. Despite these limitations, these studies 
tend to corroborate concerns about the robustness and 
representativeness of the Bureau's key findings based on its 
interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Finally, the Bureau notes that, in two academic papers based upon 
surveys of payday borrowers, only a small portion--around 11 or 12 
percent of borrowers--reported that they were somewhat or very 
dissatisfied with their most recent payday loan experience.\196\ While 
the Bureau notes there are concerns about the representativeness of the 
samples surveyed, if it took consumers longer to pay off payday loans 
than they thought it would, one might expect consumers to be 
dissatisfied with their payday loans. They were not. These results thus 
add to the Bureau's preliminary conclusion that its interpretation in 
the 2017 Final Rule of limited data from the Mann Study provides an 
insufficiently robust and representative foundation for the findings on 
which the Bureau relied in concluding that its identified practice was 
unfair and abusive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \196\ See Gregory Elliehausen & Edward Lawrence, Payday Advance 
Credit in America: An Analysis of Customer Demand, at 52 (2001), 
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=F5246C700D90651E3340EF590C686B41?doi=10.1.1.200.7
740&rep=rep1&type=pdf; Gregory Elliehausen, An Analysis of 
Consumers' Use of Payday Loans, at 41 (2009), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237554300_AN_ANALYSIS_OF_CONSUMERS'_USE_OF_PAYDAY_LOANS; see also 
Christy A. Bronson & Daniel J. Smith, Swindled or Served?: A Survey 
of Payday Lending Customers in Southeast Alabama, 40 S. Bus. & Econ 
J. 16 (2016) (finding general satisfaction with payday lending in 
non-random survey of 48 people in Southeast Alabama).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For all these reasons and as discussed further below, the Bureau 
preliminarily believes the limited data from the Mann Study was not 
sufficiently robust and representative, in light of the Rule's dramatic 
impacts in restricting consumer access to payday loans, to be the 
linchpin for a series of key findings, including that (1) consumers who 
use covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loans lack the 
understanding needed to reasonably avoid injury from lenders' failure 
to assess consumers' ability to repay those loans; (2) consumers lack 
understanding of the material risks, costs, or conditions of such 
loans; and (3) consumers' lack of understanding contributes to their 
inability to protect their interests in the selection or use of such 
loans. The Bureau also preliminarily believes that it cannot, in a 
timely and cost-effective manner for itself and for lenders and 
borrowers, develop evidence that might or might not corroborate the 
Mann Study results that the Bureau relied upon to support the key 
findings the Bureau set forth in the 2017 Final Rule.\197\ The Bureau 
invites comment on the robustness and representativeness of the 
evidence supporting these findings, including comment on the weight the 
Bureau placed on its interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study 
and on any other evidence that may bear on these findings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \197\ As the Bureau noted in the 2017 Final Rule, ``[m]easuring 
consumers' expectations about re-borrowing is inherently 
challenging.'' 82 FR 54472, 54568.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Other Evidence on the Consumer Understanding of Risk
    The Bureau, in the 2017 Final Rule, pointed to other evidence and 
made a number of additional factual findings in support of its key 
finding, also principally based on the Mann Study, that consumers were 
not able to predict accurately the specific likelihood of their 
individual risk of entering a long reborrowing sequence from taking out 
a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan.
    For instance, the Bureau stated in the 2017 Final Rule that the way 
in which covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans are 
structured and marketed, in addition to lenders' practices in 
encouraging consumers to reborrow, are factors that exacerbate and 
contribute to consumer confusion and lack of understanding as to 
whether they will end up in long reborrowing sequences.\198\ Further, 
the Bureau relied on its expertise and experience in supervisory 
matters and enforcement actions concerning covered lenders in making 
judgments about the covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loan markets.\199\ That is, the Bureau determined on the basis of its 
expertise and experience that the available data--primarily its 
interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study--corroborated its 
belief that ``a large number of consumers do not understand even 
generally the likelihood and severity of [the] risks'' associated with 
taking out a short-term loan.\200\
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    \198\ See, e.g., id. at 54555; see also id. at 54561 (explaining 
that ``[v]arious lender practices exacerbate the problem by 
marketing to borrowers who are particularly likely to wind up in 
long sequences of loans, by failing to screen out borrowers who are 
likely to wind up in long-term debt or to establish guardrails to 
avoid long-term indebtedness, and by actively encouraging borrowers 
to continue to reborrow when their single-payment loans come 
due.''). The Bureau, in the 2017 Final Rule, pointed to a host of 
lender practices before, during, and after origination that the 
Bureau said tend to diminish consumers' ability to avoid or mitigate 
harms and protect their own interests in selecting or using covered 
products. Id. at 54560-61. These included marketing that portrays 
the product as a short-term financial fix rather than emphasizing 
the substantial risks of reborrowing, screening only for immediate 
default risk at origination rather than conducting more vigorous 
underwriting, various practices in connection with taking account 
access and vehicle title, the presentation of repayment options as 
only allowing for full repayment or rollovers, and failing to inform 
consumers of ``off-ramp'' payment options. Id. at 54561-65.
    \199\ See id. at 54506-07.
    \200\ Id. at 54597-98. The Bureau also interpreted one survey of 
payday borrowers, about how long the average borrower would have a 
payday loan outstanding, to suggest that borrowers were ``somewhat 
optimistic'' about reborrowing behavior generally. See id. at 54568 
& n.542 (citing Marianne Bertrand & Adair Morse, Information 
Disclosures, Cognitive Biases and Payday Borrowing, 66 J. of Fin. 
1865 (2011)). The survey asked the question: ``What's your best 
guess of how long it takes the average person to pay back in full a 
$300 payday loan?'' (quoted at 82 FR 54568). However, the Bureau did 
not address the overall findings from the survey that, though 
responses varied widely, the mean response to the survey was ``close 
to [the] range'' of other data indicating how long borrowers 
actually took to pay back their loans. See Bertrand & Morse at 1878.

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[[Page 4267]]

    These additional findings,\201\ in essence, supplemented and were 
ultimately subordinate to the Bureau's interpretation of limited data 
from the Mann Study, which was the linchpin for the Bureau's findings 
in the 2017 Final Rule that consumers lacked an understanding of the 
possible risks and consequences associated with taking out payday 
loans. The Bureau does not believe that this additional evidence and 
other findings suffice to compensate for the insufficient robustness 
and representativeness of the limited data from the Mann Study.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \201\ The Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule cited research stating 
that certain consumer behaviors may make it difficult for them to 
predict accurately the future implications of taking out a covered 
short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan. As the Bureau made 
clear, however, this research helped to explain the Bureau's 
findings from the Mann Study but was not in itself an independent 
basis to conclude that consumers do not predict whether they will 
remain in reborrowing sequences. 82 FR 54472, 54571 (explaining that 
``[r]egardless of the underlying explanation, the empirical evidence 
indicates that many borrowers who find themselves ending up in 
extended loan sequences did not expect that outcome.''). Other data 
cited in the 2017 Final Rule to support consumers' underestimation 
of the cost and timing of repaying payday loans appears to be cited 
out of context. See, e.g., id. at 54571 (citing Rob Levy & Joshua 
Sledge, A Complex Portrait: An Examination of Small-Dollar Credit 
Consumers, (Ctr. for Fin. Serv. Innovation, 2012), https://www.fdic.gov/news/conferences/consumersymposium/2012/A%20Complex%20Portrait.pdf). The Bureau suggested that users of 
payday and vehicle title loan products were more likely to 
underestimate the cost of their loans compared to users of other 
credit products. On further review, the Bureau does not believe that 
this statement presents a complete picture, because the cited study 
asked for predictions on cost and timing regarding small dollar loan 
products only, not more common credit products like credit cards. 
See 82 FR 54472, 54571; Levy & Sledge at 21. The Bureau also did not 
address the study's findings identifying many users of payday and 
title loan products who found the loans less costly than expected, 
and found themselves in debt for less time than expected. See Levy & 
Sledge at 21.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. The Pew Study and the Finding Based on It
    As discussed in part V.A.2 above, the Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule 
also found that consumers who use covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loans lack the ability to protect their interests in 
selecting or using these loans, and that lenders' practice of making 
such loans without assessing consumers' ability to repay took 
unreasonable advantage of that vulnerability.\202\ The predicate 
finding that these consumers lack the ability to protect themselves 
relied heavily on a survey of payday borrowers conducted by the Pew 
Charitable Trusts, discussed above, in which 37 percent of borrowers 
answered in the affirmative to the question ``Have you ever felt you 
were in such a difficult situation that you would take [a payday loan] 
on pretty much any terms offered?'' \203\ The Bureau interpreted the 
survey results as demonstrating that these consumers, if faced with an 
immediate need for cash, lack the ability to ``effectively identify or 
develop alternatives that would vitiate the need to borrow [or] allow 
them to borrow on terms within their ability to repay.'' \204\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \202\ 82 FR 54472, 54614.
    \203\ Pew Study at 6, 21, 60.
    \204\ 82 FR 54472, 54619.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that the Pew Study is an 
inadequate basis for the Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule to have drawn 
broad conclusions about consumers' ability to take actions to protect 
their own interests. To begin with, the survey asked respondents about 
their feelings, not about their actions. Respondents were not asked 
whether they had, in fact, taken out a payday loan at a time when they 
said they would have done so on ``pretty much any terms.'' That some 
respondents at some time felt they had been at some point willing to 
take a payday loan on any terms does not indicate what they actually 
did at that time or how often they took out payday loans in general. 
Further, the Pew Study itself contains a number of other findings that 
cast doubt on whether, as the Bureau found, payday borrowers cannot 
explore available alternatives that would protect their interests. For 
example, the Pew Study found that 58 percent of respondents had trouble 
meeting their regular monthly bills half the time or more, suggesting 
that these borrowers are, in fact, accustomed to exploring alternatives 
to deal with cash shortfalls.\205\ Similarly, in a prior survey, the 
Pew Charitable Trusts found that if payday loans were not available, 
borrowers would cut back on expenses (81 percent), delay paying some 
bills (62 percent), borrow from friends or family (57 percent), or pawn 
personal property (57 percent) \206\--further raising questions with 
respect to the Bureau's reliance in the 2017 Final Rule on the Pew 
Study to find that consumers cannot explore other alternatives and thus 
cannot protect their interests. These results indicate that consumers 
are familiar with mechanisms other than payday loans to deal with cash 
shortfalls.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \205\ Pew Study at 9.
    \206\ Pew Charitable Trusts, Payday Lending in America: Who 
Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why, at 16 (2012), http://
www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/
pewpaydaylendingreportpdf.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Other research casts further doubt on the weight the Bureau placed 
in the 2017 Final Rule on the Pew Study and on the robustness and 
reliability of the evidence to support the Bureau's finding that 
consumers who use payday or other covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loans lack the ability to explore alternatives. One 
study suggests that, precisely because they are financially vulnerable, 
payday borrowers are accustomed to facing cash shortfalls and have used 
a variety of different approaches for dealing with such situations. 
Some involve juggling of expenses, while others involve accessing 
alternative sources of cash, including overdraft, pawn loans, and 
informal borrowing. Research released since the 2017 Final Rule 
underscores the point. In a recent report issued by the Board regarding 
the economic well-being of U.S. households, consumers who reported that 
they would have difficulty covering a $400 emergency expense were asked 
how they would cope were such an emergency to arise. These consumers 
pointed to a variety of potential mechanisms including borrowing from a 
friend or family member (26 percent) or selling something (19 percent). 
Only 5 percent reported that they would use a payday loan or similar 
product.\207\ Although it is possible that those who said they would 
use a payday loan are systematically different from other respondents 
and do not have other options available to them, this Board report at 
least raises significant questions as to whether that is so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \207\ Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Report on the 
Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017, at 21 (2018), 
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau also suggested in the 2017 Final Rule that consumers who 
take out a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan may 
do so because of the ``lack of . . . availability of better 
alternatives.'' \208\ Here, too, the Pew Study is inconclusive. It 
found that many borrowers repaid their loans using methods they could 
have used instead of taking out a payday loan in the first instance, 
suggesting that these borrowers may have had other alternatives at the 
time they took out the

[[Page 4268]]

loan.\209\ Other recent research has emphasized the extent to which 
borrowing among friends and families is common among the most 
financially vulnerable.\210\ Moreover, in the 2017 Final Rule, the 
Bureau itself reviewed a range of options that it believed would be 
available and accessible to consumers if they were unable to obtain a 
covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan as a result of 
the ability-to-repay determination required by the Rule.\211\ These 
include installment loans offered by payday and vehicle title lenders 
and other providers which are replacing short-term products,\212\ as 
well as emerging fintech products such as wage advances and no-cost 
advances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \208\ 82 FR 54472, 54620.
    \209\ Alternatives to borrowing identified by the Pew Study 
included receiving funds from family and friends, using tax refunds, 
pawning or selling items, using credit cards, and taking out a loan 
from a bank or credit union. Pew Study at 36-38.
    \210\ See, e.g., Jonathan Morduch and Julie Siwicki, In and Out 
of Poverty: Episodic poverty and income volatility in the U.S. 
Financial Diaries, at 17 (2017), https://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/paper2.
    \211\ 82 FR 54472, 54609-11.
    \212\ See, e.g., John Hecht, Short Term Lending Update: Moving 
Forward with Positive Momentum (2018) (Jefferies LLC, slide 
presentation) (on file); see also 82 FR 54472, 54609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Finally, the Bureau notes that in 17 States and the District of 
Columbia, payday loans are prohibited. Consumers in these States that 
find themselves in difficult financial circumstances rely primarily on 
options other than covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans,\213\ raising questions about the Bureau's finding that consumers 
in States in which payday loans are not prohibited cannot do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \213\ 82 FR 54472, 54485 (noting that at least 11 States and 
jurisdictions that previously permitted payday lending took steps to 
restrict or eliminate such lending altogether).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For all the reasons set forth above, the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that the Pew Study does not provide a sufficiently robust and 
reliable basis for the Bureau's finding in the 2017 Final Rule that 
consumers who use covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loans lack the ability to protect themselves in selecting or using 
these products. And as with the Mann Study, as discussed above, the 
Bureau preliminarily believes that it cannot, in a timely and cost-
effective manner for itself and for lenders and borrowers, develop 
sufficiently robust and reliable evidence that might or might not 
corroborate the Pew Study results. The Bureau seeks comment on the 
robustness and reliability of the evidence supporting this key finding, 
including comment on the weight the Bureau placed on the Pew Study, and 
on any other evidence that may bear on this finding.
4. Other Evidence Pertaining to Inability To Protect
    In addition to the Pew Study, and as set out in part V.B.2 above, 
the Bureau pointed in the 2017 Final Rule to the structure of the loans 
themselves, expressing the belief that their short repayment periods 
and balloon payments may make it substantially harder for consumers to 
work themselves out of debt than if they were subject to a longer, 
slower repayment schedule.\214\ As support for the findings in the 2017 
Final Rule that the identified practice was abusive, the Bureau also 
pointed to a host of lender practices before, during, and after 
origination that the Bureau said tend to diminish consumers' ability to 
avoid or mitigate harms and protect their own interests in selecting or 
using covered products.\215\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \214\ Id. at 54561.
    \215\ Id. at 54560-61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As set forth in part V.B.2 above, the data identified in the 2017 
Final Rule suggests that many consumers do use short-term loans as 
marketed--that is, as short-term or stop-gap measures, without 
initiating a prolonged sequence of reborrowing.\216\ Further, evidence 
in the 2017 Final Rule showed that, while some lenders may discourage 
the use of repayment plans or off-ramps or otherwise encourage extended 
reborrowing, many consumers nevertheless avoid long reborrowing 
sequences and pay off their covered short-term and longer-term balloon-
payment loans with no, or minimal, renewals.\217\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \216\ Id. at 54570-71.
    \217\ Id. at 54704.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Conclusion
    Based on its analysis in parts V.B.1 through V.B.4 above, the 
Bureau believes that the key evidentiary grounds relied upon in the 
2017 Final Rule were insufficiently robust and reliable to support the 
findings of an unfair and abusive practice as identified in Sec.  
1041.4. The Bureau preliminarily concludes that neither the Bureau's 
interpretation of limited data from the Mann Study nor other sources on 
which the Bureau relied provide a sufficiently robust and 
representative evidentiary basis, in light of the expected impacts of 
the 2017 Final Rule, to conclude that consumers do not have a specific 
understanding of their personal risks and cannot accurately predict 
whether they will remain in long reborrowing sequences after taking out 
covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans. The Bureau 
also preliminarily concludes that the Pew Study, and other evidence 
cited in support of the Pew Study, do not provide a sufficiently robust 
and reliable basis to conclude that consumers who use covered short-
term or longer-term balloon-payment loans lack the ability to protect 
themselves in selecting or using these products. The Bureau further 
preliminarily concludes that the weaknesses in the evidentiary record 
on which the Bureau relied for the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions in 
the 2017 Final Rule is particularly problematic as a policy matter 
because these provisions will have dramatic effects, including 
eliminating many lenders and decreasing consumer access to financial 
products that they may want. Accordingly, the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that these conclusions are sufficient to rescind Sec.  1041.4.

C. The Legal Findings Under Section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank Act

    In addition to, and independent from, its preliminary determination 
that the evidence relied upon in the 2017 Final Rule was insufficiently 
robust and reliable to support the Bureau's key findings underlying the 
unfairness and abusiveness determinations, the Bureau also 
preliminarily determines that the standards for unfairness and 
abusiveness used in the 2017 Final Rule were problematic for the 
reasons discussed below.
    Specifically, as to the Bureau's unfairness findings in the 2017 
Final Rule, the Bureau is making this preliminary conclusion about how 
the 2017 Final Rule applied: (1) Section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-
Frank Act relating to determining whether injuries are reasonably 
avoidable, and (2) section 1031(c)(1)(B) about whether substantial 
injury is outweighed by countervailing benefits. The Bureau is also 
making this preliminary conclusion, as to the Bureau's abusiveness 
findings in the 2017 Final Rule, about how the 2017 Final Rule applied: 
(1) Section 1031(d)(2)(A) relating to determining whether consumers 
lack understanding of the material costs, risks, or conditions of a 
consumer financial product or service; and (2) section 1031(d)(2) 
relating to the determination that lenders took unreasonable advantage 
of consumers by making covered short-term and balloon-payment loans 
without reasonably assessing borrowers' ability to repay such loans 
according to their terms.
    Accordingly, as discussed further below, the Bureau preliminarily

[[Page 4269]]

believes that the 2017 Final Rule should not have concluded that the 
identified practice was unfair and abusive. This preliminary conclusion 
is independent from the Bureau's preliminary conclusions regarding the 
evidentiary basis for the 2017 Final Rule. In other words, even if the 
evidence on which the 2017 Final Rule was based was sufficiently robust 
and reliable, the Bureau preliminarily believes that the Bureau should 
not have concluded in the 2017 Final Rule that the identified practice 
was unfair and abusive because the agency used problematic approaches, 
as discussed below, in applying the standards for unfairness and 
abusiveness.
1. Reasonable Avoidability
    The Bureau determined in the 2017 Final Rule that making covered 
short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loans without reasonably 
assessing a borrower's ability to repay the loan according to its terms 
is an unfair act or practice. In making this determination, the Bureau 
concluded that this practice: (1) Caused or was likely to cause 
substantial injury to consumers; (2) that that injury was not 
reasonably avoidable by consumers; and (3) that the injury was not 
outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.\218\ 
The Bureau believes the approach it used to reach these conclusions was 
problematic, as discussed below, and it now preliminarily proposes a 
better approach to applying the reasonable avoidability standard, 
incorporating the lessons of relevant precedent by the FTC. The Bureau 
preliminarily concludes that, even assuming that the factual findings 
in the 2017 Final Rule were correct and sufficiently supported, those 
findings did not establish that consumers could not reasonably avoid 
harm under the best interpretation of the statute, informed by relevant 
precedent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \218\ Id. at 54588.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As discussed in part V.A.1, the Bureau, in the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule, interpreted section 
1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act to mean that for an injury to be 
reasonably avoidable consumers must ``have reason generally to 
anticipate the likelihood and severity of the injury and the practical 
means to avoid it.'' \219\ As discussed above, the Bureau interpreted 
this standard in the 2017 Final Rule context as requiring consumers to 
have a specific understanding of the magnitude and severity of their 
personal risks such that they could accurately predict how long they 
would be in debt after taking out a covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loan.\220\ The Bureau acknowledged that such borrowers 
``typically understand that they are incurring a debt which must be 
repaid within a prescribed period of time and that, if they are unable 
to do so, they will either have to make other arrangements or suffer 
adverse consequences.'' \221\ The Bureau also acknowledged that the 
Mann Study on which the Bureau so heavily relied found that most payday 
borrowers expected some repeated sequences of loans.\222\ Nonetheless, 
the Bureau stated that ``[t]he heart of the matter here is consumer 
perception of risk, and whether borrowers are in [a] position to gauge 
the likelihood and severity of the risks they incur by taking out 
covered short-term loans in the absence of any reasonable assessment of 
their ability to repay those loans according to their terms.'' \223\ 
Because it found that consumers are not in a position to evaluate the 
risks, the Bureau found that consumers could not reasonably avoid the 
injuries.\224\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \219\ Id. at 54594.
    \220\ Id. at 54594-96.
    \221\ Id.at 54615.
    \222\ Id. at 54569.
    \223\ Id. at 54597.
    \224\ Id. at 54594; see also id. at 54597.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau is concerned that in the 2017 Final Rule it applied a 
problematic standard for reasonable avoidability under section 
1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
    In applying unfairness principles, the FTC and courts have long 
recognized that for an injury to be reasonably avoidable consumers must 
not only ``know the physical steps to take in order to prevent it'' but 
also ``understand the necessity of actually taking those steps.'' \225\ 
Put differently, ``an injury is reasonably avoidable if consumers have 
reason to anticipate the impending harm and the means to avoid it.'' 
\226\ The FTC Policy Statement emphasizes the importance of consumer 
choice in unfairness analysis. As the FTC Policy Statement explains, 
unfairness authority is not intended to ``second-guess the wisdom of 
particular consumer decisions'' and consumers are expected to ``survey 
the available alternatives, choose those that are most desirable, and 
avoid those that are inadequate or unsatisfactory.'' \227\ Unfairness 
matters typically are brought to halt ``some form of seller behavior 
that unreasonably creates or takes advantage of an obstacle to the free 
exercise of consumer decisionmaking.'' \228\ The Bureau finds these 
precedents informative as the Bureau considers how to apply section 
1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \225\ See Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 1066.
    \226\ Davis v. HSBC Bank Nev., N.A., 691 F.3d 1152, 1168 (9th 
Cir. 2012), quoting Orkin Exterminating Co., Inc. v. F.T.C., 849 
F.2d 1354, 1365-66 (11th Cir. 1988).
    \227\ FTC Policy Statement, Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. 1074.
    \228\ Id. The FTC Policy Statement offers examples of such 
misbehavior, including withholding critical information, engaging in 
overt coercion, or exercising undue influence over susceptible 
classes of purchasers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In assessing whether consumers could reasonably avoid harm, the 
Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule concluded that they could not without a 
specific understanding of their individualized risk, as determined by 
their ability to accurately predict how long they would be in debt 
after taking out a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loan.\229\ Even though the Bureau used this interpretation in the 2017 
Final Rule, the Bureau now preliminarily concludes that consumers need 
not have a specific understanding of their individualized likelihood 
and magnitude of harm such that they could accurately predict how long 
they would be in debt after taking out a covered short-term or longer-
term balloon-payment loan for the injury to be reasonably avoidable. To 
require that consumers know their individualized likelihood and 
magnitude of harm from an act or practice to reasonably avoid their 
effects inflates the injury from them, would practically speaking shift 
the burden to lenders to make such determinations, thereby deterring 
lenders from offering products or product features, which effectively 
suppresses rather than facilitates consumer choice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \229\ 82 FR 54472, 54597-98.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This particular problem with the 2017 Final Rule is illustrated by 
how the Bureau responded to several comments that urged the Bureau to 
mandate consumer disclosures instead of imposing an ability-to-repay 
requirement. In rejecting that suggestion, the Bureau stated that 
``generalized or abstract information'' about the attendant risks would 
``not inform the consumer of the risks of the particular loan in light 
of the consumer's particular financial situation.'' \230\ The Bureau 
went on to state that ``[t]he only disclosure that the Bureau could 
envision that could come close to positioning consumers to mitigate the 
unfair and abusive practice effectively would be an individualized 
forecast'' and that such ``an individualized disclosure might require 
more compliance burden than the

[[Page 4270]]

[Mandatory Underwriting Provisions in the Final Rule] to the extent 
that it would require a lender to forecast how many rollovers or how 
much re-borrowing might be required in the event that a consumer is not 
likely to repay the entire balance during the initial loan term.'' 
\231\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \230\ Id. at 54637 (emphasis added).
    \231\ Id. (emphasis added).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Thus, according to the 2017 Final Rule, many consumers are unable 
to reasonably avoid injury because they are unable to examine their own 
circumstances, the loan terms, and the typical loan performance in 
these markets, and determine from this information both their personal 
likelihood of timely repayment and the seriousness of the consequences 
if they fail to repay. The application of reasonable avoidability in 
the 2017 Final Rule contemplates that consumers cannot reasonably avoid 
harm even though they have a general knowledge that difficulty repaying 
(either temporarily or permanently) could occur and could lead them 
either to reborrow or default and experience adverse credit reporting, 
collections efforts, and even repossessions, liens, and garnishment of 
wages. Indeed, under the 2017 Final Rule's interpretation, consumers 
cannot reasonably avoid injury even if they recognize that they will be 
unable to repay the loan when initially due and will need to borrow but 
are uncertain as to precisely how long it will take them to be able to 
fully pay off the debt. Rather than consider whether consumers have 
reason to anticipate the impending harm and the means to avoid it, the 
Bureau interpreted the standard as requiring consumers to understand 
the specific likelihood and severity of potential harm to them.
    Upon further consideration, the Bureau now preliminarily believes 
that using this reasonable avoidability standard was problematic. 
Whether through disclosure or through underwriting, the logic the 
Bureau applied in the 2017 Final Rule requires providers of covered 
short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans to engage in extremely 
detailed, specific action with regard to particular consumers to 
correct for the consumers' individualized understanding--or lack of 
understanding--about their own finances and likely experiences with 
such loans.
    As discussed in part IV, FTC Act precedent informs the Bureau's 
understanding of the unfairness standard under section 1031(c)(1)(A) of 
the Dodd-Frank Act. Accordingly, the Bureau considers FTC precedents 
when evaluating whether an act or practice causes harm or is likely to 
cause harm that is reasonably avoidable by consumers pursuant to 
section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act. When analyzing unfairness 
under the FTC Act, the FTC and courts have held that ``an injury is 
reasonably avoidable if consumers have reason to anticipate the 
impending harm and the means to avoid it,'' \232\ meaning that ``people 
know the physical steps to take in order to prevent'' injury,\233\ but 
``also . . . understand the necessity of actually taking those steps.'' 
\234\ Under this approach, whether a consumer can anticipate and avoid 
injury through consumer choice informs whether that injury is 
reasonably avoidable.\235\ In some cases, consumer injury was not 
reasonably avoidable because a potential harm was not disclosed and 
consumers could not anticipate that harm from prior experience.\236\ In 
other cases, firms have engaged in deception or outright coercion to 
prevent the exercise of free consumer choice.\237\ However, the Bureau 
has not identified relevant precedent suggesting that consumers must 
understand their own specific individualized likelihood and magnitude 
of harm to reasonably avoid injury or requiring the disclosure of such 
information to prevent injury. A disclosure that generally alerts 
consumers to the likelihood and magnitude of harm generally has been 
sufficient to avoid a finding that consumers did not appreciate the 
value of taking steps to avoid that harm.\238\
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    \232\ See Davis, 691 F.3d at 1168.
    \233\ See Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 1066.
    \234\ Id.
    \235\ See Orkin, 849 F.2d at 1365.
    \236\ See id. (``consumer choice was impossible'' when company 
raised annual fees without a contractual basis for lifetime termite 
protection services); Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 1066. 
(``Farmers may have known that loosening the fuel cap was generally 
a poor practice, but they did not know from the limited disclosures 
made, nor could they be expected to know from prior experience, the 
full consequences that might follow from it.'').
    \237\ See F.T.C. v. Wyndham Worldwide Corp., 799 F.3d 236, at 
245-46 (3rd Cir. 2015) (injury from data breaches was not reasonably 
avoidable because of misleading privacy policy that overstated the 
company's data security practices); Holland Furnace Co. v. F.T.C., 
295 F.2d 302 (7th Cir. 1961) (company representatives dismantled 
furnaces without permission and refused to reassemble them until 
consumers agreed to buy services or parts).
    \238\ See, e.g., Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. 949, at *46 (noting 
that the dissemination of the disclosure --``AVOID FIRES. TIGHTEN 
cap securely, Do not open when engine is RUNNING or HOT''--would 
have made the injury from fuel geysering reasonably avoidable).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau's approach to reasonable avoidability is also consistent 
with trade regulation rules promulgated by the FTC over several decades 
to address unfair or deceptive practices that occur on industry-wide 
bases.\239\ To prevent such conduct, the FTC has routinely established 
disclosure requirements that mandate businesses provide to consumers 
general information about material terms, conditions, or risks related 
to products or services.\240\ However, no FTC trade regulation rule 
based on unfairness has required businesses to provide individualized 
forecasts or disclosures of each customer's or prospective customer's 
own specific likelihood and magnitude of potential harm.\241\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \239\ Section 18 of the FTC Act provides that the FTC is 
authorized to prescribe ``rules which define with specificity acts 
or practices which are unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or 
affecting commerce'' within the meaning of section 5 of the FTC Act. 
15 U.S.C. 57a. The FTC's trade regulation rules are codified at 16 
CFR part 400.
    \240\ See, e.g., Use of Prenotification Negative Option Plans 
Rule, 16 CFR 425.1(a)(1) (promotional material must clearly and 
conspicuously disclose material terms); Funeral Industry Practices 
Rule, 16 CFR 453.2(b) (requiring itemized price disclosures of 
funeral goods and services and other non-consumer specific 
disclosures); Credit Practices Rule, 16 CFR 444.3 (prohibiting 
certain practices and requiring disclosures about cosigner 
liability).
    \241\ For example, the Credit Practices Rule requires that a 
covered creditor to provide a ``Notice to Cosigner'' disclosure 
prior to a cosigner becoming obligated on a loan. This notice 
advises in a concise and general manner consumers who cosign 
obligations about their potential liability. This notice is not 
individually-tailored and does not require a covered creditor to 
disclose information about the severity or likelihood of risks 
related to cosigner liability. See 16 CFR 444.3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that it should interpret the 
reasonable avoidability standard as not necessarily requiring payday 
borrowers to have a specific understanding of their personal risks such 
that they can accurately predict how long they will be in debt after 
taking out a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan. 
Indeed, by virtue of the fact that many payday borrowers experience 
income and debt volatility, the 2017 Final Rule effectively presupposed 
that payday borrowers per se cannot reasonably avoid injury. The Bureau 
now preliminarily believes that the injury is reasonably avoidable if 
payday borrowers have an understanding of the likelihood and magnitude 
of risks of harm associated with payday loans sufficient for them to 
anticipate those harms and understand the necessity of taking 
reasonable steps to prevent resulting injury. Specifically, this means 
consumers need only to understand that a significant portion of payday 
borrowers experience difficulty repaying and that if such borrowers do 
not make other arrangements they either end up in extended loan 
sequences, default, or struggle to pay other bills after repaying their 
payday loan. The Bureau now preliminarily concludes

[[Page 4271]]

that this approach, consistent with the FTC's longstanding approach on 
informed consumer decision-making in its interpretation of the 
unfairness standard, is the best interpretation of section 
1031(c)(1)(A) as a legal and policy matter. In the Bureau's preliminary 
judgment, this approach appropriately emphasizes informed consumer 
decision-making.\242\
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    \242\ As the FTC stated in the FTC Policy Statement: ``[W]e 
expect the marketplace to be self-correcting, and we rely on 
consumer choice--the ability of individual consumers to make their 
own private purchasing decisions without regulatory intervention--to 
govern the market. We anticipate that consumers will survey the 
available alternatives, choose those that are most desirable, and 
avoid those that are inadequate or unsatisfactory.'' FTC Policy 
Statement, Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 1074. See also Orkin, 849 
F.2d at 1365 (``The Commission's focus on a consumer's ability to 
reasonably avoid injury `stems from the Commission's general 
reliance on free and informed consumer choice at the best regulator 
of the market.''') (quoting Am. Fin. Serv. Ass'n v. F.T.C., 767 F.2d 
957, 976 (D.C. Cir. 1985)).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Applying an interpretation consistent with FTC precedent, the 
Bureau preliminarily believes that, assuming for present purposes that 
the identified practice causes or is likely to cause substantial 
injury, consumers can reasonably avoid that injury. As noted above, in 
the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau expressly found that payday loan 
borrowers ``typically understand they are incurring a debt which must 
be repaid within a prescribed period of time and that, if they are 
unable to do so, they will either have to make other arrangements or 
suffer adverse consequences.'' \243\ Payday loans are advertised as 
products designed to assist consumers who are in financial distress, 
which tends to create general awareness that payday borrowers may not 
necessarily be in a position to readily obtain cheaper forms of credit. 
In light of their limited options and financial volatility, payday 
borrowers may infer that there are risks associated with taking the 
loans. Indeed, as previously noted, the Bureau expressly acknowledged 
that the Mann Study on which the Bureau so heavily relied found that 
most payday borrowers expected some repeated sequences of loans. The 
Bureau also notes that a significant portion of longer-term borrowers--
who were the Bureau's primary concern in the 2017 Final Rule--have 
previously used covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans and personally experienced extended loan sequences.\244\ 
Consumers who have reborrowed in the past would seem particularly 
likely to have an understanding that such reborrowing is relatively 
common even if they cannot predict specifically how long they will need 
to borrow. Further, a Bureau analysis of a study of State-mandated 
payday loan disclosures--which inform consumers about repayment and 
reborrowing rates--found that such disclosures had a limited impact on 
reducing payday loan use and, in particular, reborrowing.\245\ The 
majority of consumers in the study continued to take out payday loans 
despite the disclosures. A plausible explanation for the limited effect 
of disclosures on consumer behavior in this study is that payday loan 
users were already aware that such loans can result in extended loan 
sequences.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \243\ 82 FR 54472, 54615.
    \244\ Id. at 54597.
    \245\ Id. at 54577-78; see Tex. Office of Consumer Credit 
Comm'r, Credit Access Businesses, http://occc.texas.gov/industry/cab.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule did not offer evidence that would 
support the conclusion that consumers cannot reasonably avoid 
substantial injury from taking out payday loans when applying a 
standard that focuses on a more generalized understanding of likelihood 
and magnitude of harm from taking out such loans. The Bureau also found 
in the 2017 Final Rule that consumers who would not be offered a payday 
loan under either Sec.  1041.5 or Sec.  1041.6 would have alternatives 
to payday loans.\246\ Accordingly, the Bureau preliminarily believes 
that there is not a sufficient evidentiary basis on which to find that 
consumers cannot reasonably avoid substantial injury caused or likely 
to be caused by lenders making covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans without assessing borrowers' ability to repay.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \246\ 82 FR 54472, 54840-41.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau seeks comments on this issue, including comment on the 
Bureau's proposed revised interpretation of reasonable avoidability 
under section 1031(c)(1) of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Bureau requests 
comment about the types or sources of information with respect to 
consumer understanding about covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans that would be pertinent to a determination of 
whether consumers can reasonably avoid the substantial injury caused or 
likely to be caused by the identified practice.
2. Countervailing Benefits to Consumers and to Competition
    After determining in the 2017 Final Rule that the identified 
practice causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers 
which is not reasonably avoidable by them, the Bureau went on to 
determine that such substantial injury is not outweighed by 
countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition. This is a 
necessary element of an unfairness determination under section 
1031(c)(1)(B) of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Bureau now revisits this 
latter determination and believes certain countervailing benefits from 
the identified practice were greater than the Bureau found in the 2017 
Final Rule. Even assuming arguendo that the identified practice causes 
or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not 
reasonably avoidable, the Bureau now revalues and determines that the 
countervailing benefits under the unfairness analysis were greater than 
the Bureau found in the 2017 Final Rule, and now preliminarily believes 
that the benefits to consumers and competition from the practice 
outweigh any such injury.
a. Reconsideration of the Dependence of the Unfairness Identification 
on the Principal Step-Down Exemption
    Section 1031(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the Bureau to 
prescribe rules ``identifying as unlawful unfair, deceptive, or abusive 
acts or practices'' if the Bureau makes the requisite findings with 
respect to such acts or practices.\247\ The Bureau exercised this 
authority in Sec.  1041.4 to determine that it is unfair and abusive 
for a lender to make covered loans ``without reasonably determining 
that the consumers will have the ability to repay the loans according 
to their terms.'' \248\ The Bureau also exercised its authority under 
section 1031(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act to impose ``requirements for the 
purpose of preventing such acts or practices'' by adopting requirements 
in Sec.  1041.5 for how lenders should go about making such an ability-
to-repay determination.\249\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \247\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(b).
    \248\ 12 CFR 1041.4 (emphasis added).
    \249\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(b); 12 CFR 1041.5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the section 1022(b)(2) analysis of the 2017 Final Rule, the 
Bureau estimated that if lenders ceased to engage in the identified 
practice and instead followed the mandatory underwriting requirements 
designed to prevent that practice, only one-third of current borrowers 
would be able to obtain any loans and, of those who obtained a loan, 
only one-third would be able to obtain a subsequent loan.\250\ The end 
result, the Bureau estimated, would be to eliminate between 89 and 93 
percent of all loans.\251\
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    \250\ 82 FR 54472, 54833.
    \251\ Id. at 54826 (storefront payday), 54834 (vehicle title).

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[[Page 4272]]

    In conducting its countervailing benefits analysis, however, the 
Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule did not address the benefits to consumers 
or competition from lenders making covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans without an ability-to-repay determination. Rather 
than focusing on the effects of the identified practice itself, the 
Bureau interjected into its analysis the effect of Rule provisions that 
were intended to mitigate the general effects of the requirement that 
lenders make an ability-to-repay determination. Specifically, the 
Bureau included in its countervailing benefits analysis the principal 
step-down exemption in Sec.  1041.6. The principal step-down exemption 
permits a certain number of covered short-term and longer-term balloon-
payment loans to be made without assessing the consumer's ability to 
repay so long as the loans meet a series of other conditions, including 
a requirement that the loan amount is amortized over successive loans 
by stepping down the principal over such loans. None of these 
conditions involve any ability-to-repay determination by the lender. 
Rather, the conditions generally focus on whether the loan amount is 
amortized (stepped down) over successive loans. The Bureau anticipated 
that the principal step-down exemption would actually be the 
predominant approach that payday lenders would use to comply with the 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, because of the substantial burdens 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would impose on lenders.
    The principal step-down exemption was not part of the identified 
practice. Rather, the exemption was added pursuant to the Bureau's 
authority to create exemptions which the Bureau deems ``necessary or 
appropriate to carry out the purposes and objectives of'' Title X of 
the Dodd-Frank Act.\252\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \252\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(3).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule did not consider in the 
countervailing benefits analysis the full benefits to consumers and 
competition from the identified practice of lenders making covered 
loans without making an ability-to-repay determination. In the words of 
the Bureau, the combination of the mandatory underwriting requirements 
plus the principal step-down exemption meant that only a ``relatively 
limited number of consumers'' would face a ``restriction on covered 
loans'' which ``reduces the weight on this [the countervailing 
benefits] side of the scale.'' \253\ This weight would have been much 
greater had the Bureau properly considered the full benefits from 
lenders engaging in the identified practice.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \253\ 82 FR 54472, 54609, 54603.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that the approach taken by the 
Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule puts the proverbial cart before the 
horse. The principal step-down exemption is a carve-out from 
requirements adopted to prevent an identified unfair and abusive 
practice. Thus, a predicate for the exemption, as pertinent here, is 
the existence of an act or practice which is unfair--which is to say, 
the existence of an act or practice for which the substantial injury 
outweighs countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition. It 
follows that an exemption predicated on the existence of an unfair 
practice should not be taken into account in determining whether a 
particular act or practice is unfair, i.e., in assessing the 
countervailing benefits of the act or practice at issue.
    As the FTC Policy Statement explains, ``[m]ost business practices 
entail a mixture of economic and other costs and benefits for 
purchasers. . . . The [FTC] is aware of these tradeoffs and will not 
find that a practice unfairly injures consumers unless it is injurious 
in its net effects.'' \254\ In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau declared 
a practice unfair based on its aggregate costs to consumers, but in 
doing so it relied analytically on a large-scale exemption to avoid 
fully considering the practice's benefits, thereby inflating the costs 
of the practice relative to its benefits. Because the Bureau did not 
confront the total tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of the 
identified practice, the Bureau now preliminarily believes that the 
2017 Final Rule undervalued countervailing benefits. Doing so may brand 
business practices as unfair when they are beneficial on net to 
consumers or competition.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \254\ See FTC Policy Statement, Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 
1073.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Accordingly, the Bureau preliminarily believes that when evaluating 
the countervailing benefits of the identified practice, the Bureau 
should have accounted for the complete benefits from that practice. The 
complete benefits to consumers and competition should reflect the 
benefits to consumers that would be lost if the identified practice 
were prohibited. Otherwise, it is not possible to accurately assess (as 
the Bureau now preliminarily interprets the unfairness test as 
requiring) whether the benefits of making such loans without 
determining ability to repay outweigh the injury from doing so.
b. Effect of Undervaluing Countervailing Benefits
    The Bureau also preliminarily believes that after fully accounting 
for the countervailing benefits--including benefits it disregarded in 
the 2017 Final Rule because of its reliance on the principal step-down 
exemption and also other benefits that it acknowledged but, in the 
Bureau's current view, undervalued--any aggregate injury to consumers 
caused by the identified practice is outweighed by the aggregate 
countervailing benefits to consumers and competition of that practice.
    As the Bureau noted in the 2017 Final Rule, the relevant question 
under section 1031(c)(1)(B) of the Dodd-Frank Act is whether the 
countervailing benefits ``outweigh the substantial injury that 
consumers are unable reasonably to avoid and that stems from the 
identified practice.'' The Bureau approaches this determination by 
first weighing the relevant injury in the aggregate (taking the 
findings of the 2017 Rule as a given because it need not reconsider 
them here), then weighing countervailing benefits in the aggregate, and 
then assessing which of the two predominates.\255\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \255\ 82 FR 54472, 54602. ``Injury is weighed in the aggregate, 
rather than simply on a consumer-by-consumer basis,'' and conversely 
``the countervailing benefits to consumers are also measured in the 
aggregate, and the Bureau includes the benefits even to those 
consumers who, on net, were injured.'' Id. at 54591.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i. Countervailing Benefits to Consumers
    In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau analyzed the countervailing 
benefits separately for three segments of consumers, defined by their 
ex post behavior: Repayers (those who repay a covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loan when due without the need to reborrow 
within 30 days); reborrowers (those who eventually repay the loan but 
after one or more instances of reborrowing); and defaulters (those who 
default either on an initial loan or on a subsequent loan that is part 
of a sequence of loans).\256\ The Bureau follows the same framework 
here. At the same time, the Bureau requests comment on whether these 
are the appropriate categories within which to analyze the existence of 
countervailing benefits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \256\ Id. at 54599-600.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Repayers. In between 22 percent and 30 percent of payday loan 
sequences \257\

[[Page 4273]]

and a smaller slice of vehicle title sequences,\258\ borrowers obtain a 
single loan, repay it in full when first due, and do not reborrow again 
for a period of 14 to 30 days thereafter. In conducting the 
countervailing benefits analysis in the 2017 Final Rule with respect to 
repayers, the Bureau did not suggest that the identified practice was 
without benefit to these repayers. Rather, the Bureau's countervailing 
benefits analysis in the 2017 Final Rule effectively acknowledged the 
identified practice had benefits for some repayers because the Rule 
recognized that it was important to avoid ``false negatives,'' i.e., 
consumers who in fact have the ability to repay but who could not 
establish it ex ante.\259\ However, the Bureau determined that these 
countervailing benefits were ``minimal,'' in part because the Bureau 
anticipated that lenders would make substantially all the loans 
permitted by the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final 
Rule and in part because the Bureau believed that the principal step-
down exemption would mitigate any false negative concerns.\260\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \257\ See Supplemental Findings at 120. The higher number uses a 
14-day definition of loan sequence and thus includes consumers who 
repay their first loan and do not borrow within the ensuing two 
weeks. The lower number uses a 30-day definition and thus counts 
only those who do not reborrow within 30 days after repayment.
    \258\ See Bureau of Consumer. Fin. Prot., Single-Payment Vehicle 
Title Lending, at 11 (May 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf (11 
to 13 percent).
    \259\ See 82 FR 54472, 54603-04.
    \260\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau now believes that in the 2017 Final Rule it understated 
the risk that, under the mandatory underwriting requirements, some 
consumers who would be repayers and would benefit from receiving a loan 
would nonetheless be denied a loan. This risk arises in part from the 
difficulty some borrowers may have in proving their ability to repay 
and in part from that the fact that some lenders may choose to ``over-
comply'' in order to reduce their legal exposure. Although the 2017 
Final Rule minimized the possibility that lenders would take a 
``conservative approach . . . due to concerns about compliance risk,'' 
\261\ the Bureau now preliminarily believes that somewhat greater 
weight should be placed on this risk. The Bureau's experience in other 
markets indicates that some lenders generally seek to take steps to 
avoid pressing the limits of the law.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \261\ Id. at 54603.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Moreover, from the perspective of the repayers, there may also be 
significant effects of requiring lenders to make ability-to-repay 
determinations that might be termed ``system'' effects. As previously 
noted, the 2017 Final Rule's assessment of benefits and costs estimated 
that, if covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loans could 
be made only to those consumers with an ability to repay in a single 
installment without reborrowing, lenders would not make upwards of 90 
percent of all loans and of course not receive revenue from loans that 
are not made. At a minimum, that would lead to a vast constriction of 
supply. The Bureau believes that a 90 percent reduction in revenue 
would produce at least a corresponding reduction in supply \262\ and 
could have even a more profound effect if the remaining revenue were 
insufficient to sustain the business model. In other words, the Bureau 
preliminarily believes that one of the countervailing benefits of 
permitting lenders to engage in the identified practice is that it 
makes it possible to offer loans on a wide-scale basis to the repayers. 
Prohibiting such lending will necessarily decrease the ability of the 
repayers to obtain covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \262\ See id. at 54817, 54842 (estimating that the 2017 Final 
Rule as a whole, including the principal step-down exemption, would 
reduce loan volume by between 62 and 68 percent and would result in 
a corresponding reduction in the number of retail outlets).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Reborrowers. As the Bureau noted in the 2017 Final Rule, over 55 
percent of both payday and vehicle title sequences result in the 
consumer reborrowing one or more times before finally repaying and not 
borrowing again for 30 days.\263\ The Bureau acknowledged that some of 
these borrowers who are unable to repay in a single installment (i.e., 
without reborrowing) may nonetheless benefit from having access to 
covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans because the 
borrowers may be income-smoothing across a longer time span. These 
borrowers also may benefit because they may face eviction, overdue 
utility bills, or other types of expenses, with paying such expenses 
sometimes creating benefits for consumers that outweigh the costs 
associated with the payday loan sequence. But the Bureau stated that 
the principal step-down exemption--which it said is ``worth 
emphasizing'' in this context--would ``reduc[e] the magnitude'' of the 
countervailing benefits flowing from the identified practice.\264\ 
After taking into account this reduction, the Bureau concluded, 
however, that the remaining countervailing benefits were outweighed by 
the injury to those reborrowers who find themselves ``unexpectedly 
trapped in extended loan sequences.'' \265\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \263\ Id. at 54605.
    \264\ Id. at 54606.
    \265\ Id. at 54605.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    On its own terms, this reasoning has no applicability with respect 
to vehicle title reborrowers for whom the principal step-down exemption 
would not be available and who thus would lose the ability to income 
smooth over more than one vehicle title loan or deal with the expenses 
referenced above. This reasoning similarly does not apply to payday 
loan reborrowers who cannot qualify for the principal step-down 
exemption, for example, borrowers who find that they have a new need 
for funds but have already exhausted the various borrowing limits 
imposed by the exemption.\266\ Moreover, as explained above, the Bureau 
believes that this reliance on the principal step-down exemption was 
misplaced.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \266\ 12 CFR 1041.6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that the consequences of this 
reliance on the exemption are profound. Under an ability-to-repay 
regime, assuming the systemic effects did not eliminate the industry 
completely, most of the 58 percent of payday borrowers or 55 percent of 
vehicle title borrowers would lose access to covered short-term and 
longer-term balloon-payment loans on the grounds that reborrowers lack 
the ability to repay the loans according to their terms. To the extent 
some consumers passed an ability-to-repay assessment and needed to 
reborrow, most would be precluded from taking out a second loan. In 
other words, the practice of making covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loans to consumers who cannot satisfy the mandatory 
underwriting requirement is the linchpin of enabling the reborrowers to 
access these type of loans.
    The Bureau acknowledges that among reborrowers there is a sizable 
segment of consumers who end up in extended loan sequences before 
repaying and thus incur significant costs. But even for these 
borrowers, there is some countervailing benefit in being able to obtain 
access to credit, typically through the initial loan, that is used to 
meet what the Bureau acknowledged in the 2017 Final Rule to be an 
``urgent need for funds'' \267\--for example, to pay rent and stave off 
an eviction or a utility bill and avoid a shutdown, or to pay for 
needed medical care or food for their family.\268\ Moreover, over 35 
percent of the reborrowers required only between one and three 
additional loans before being able to repay and stop borrowing

[[Page 4274]]

for 30 days and an additional almost 20 percent of the reborrowers 
required between four and six additional loans before being able to 
repay.\269\ These shorter-term reborrowers would forgo any benefits 
associated with these additional loans if lending was limited to those 
who can demonstrate an ability to repay in a single installment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \267\ 82 FR 54472, 54620.
    \268\ As discussed in the Rule, id. at 54538, surveys which ask 
borrowers about the reasons for borrowing may elicit answers 
regarding the immediate use to which the loan proceeds are put or 
about a past expense shock that caused the need to borrow, making 
interpretation of the survey results difficult. But what seems 
beyond dispute is that these borrowers have a pressing need for 
additional money.
    \269\ See Supplemental Findings at 122 (fig. 36).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In sum, the Bureau preliminarily believes that there are 
substantial countervailing benefits for reborrowers that flow from the 
identified practice that the Bureau now preliminarily believes should 
not have been discounted in the 2017 Final Rule by relying on the 
principal step-down exemption.
    Defaulters. The third group of borrowers discussed in the 2017 
Final Rule were those whose sequences end in default. As to this group, 
representing 20 percent of payday borrowers \270\ and 32 percent of 
vehicle title borrowers,\271\ the Bureau acknowledged that ``these 
borrowers typically would not be able to obtain loans under the terms 
of the final rule'' (and thus the Bureau did not rely on the principal 
step-down exemption in assessing the effects on these consumers).\272\ 
The Bureau went on to note that ``losing access to non-underwritten 
credit may have consequences for some consumers, including the ability 
to pay for other needs or obligations'' and the Bureau stated that this 
is ``not an insignificant countervailing benefit.'' \273\ But the 
Bureau went on to state that these borrowers ``are merely substituting 
a payday lender or title lender for a preexisting creditor'' and 
obtaining ``a temporary reprieve.'' \274\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \270\ See id. at 120 (tbl. 23).
    \271\ See Bureau of Consumer. Fin. Prot., Single-Payment Vehicle 
Title Lending, at 11 (May 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201605_cfpb_single-payment-vehicle-title-lending.pdf.
    \272\ 82 FR 54472, 54604.
    \273\ Id.
    \274\ Id. at 54604, 54590.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Of course, it is not necessarily true that all defaulters use their 
loan proceeds to pay off other outstanding loans; at least some use the 
money to purchase needed goods or services, such as medical care or 
food. Moreover, the Bureau is now concerned that in the 2017 Final Rule 
it may have minimized the value to consumers of substituting a payday 
lender for other creditors, such as a creditor with the power to 
initiate an eviction or shut off utility services or refuse medical 
care. The Bureau is also concerned that the 2017 Final Rule may have 
minimized the value of a ``temporary reprieve'' which may enable 
defaulters to stave off more dire consequences than the consequences of 
defaulting on a payday loan.
    Conclusion. In sum, the Bureau now preliminarily believes that the 
2017 Final Rule's approach to its countervailing benefits analysis 
caused it to underestimate the countervailing benefits in terms of 
access to credit that flows from the identified practice. It is not 
just the benefit of access to credit for those payday loan consumers 
who would lose access under the principal step-down exemption that 
should be weighed; rather the systemic effects of ending the identified 
practice and eliminating over 90 percent of all payday and vehicle 
title loans would adversely affect the interests of all borrowers--
including even those with the ability to repay. Furthermore, the Bureau 
now preliminarily believes that it underestimated the benefits of 
access to credit for a large segment of reborrowers and even for some 
defaulters--including the benefits of a temporary reprieve, of 
substituting a payday or vehicle title lender for some other creditor 
and, for the reborrowers, the benefit of smoothing income over a period 
longer than a single two-week or 30-day loan. The Bureau preliminarily 
believes that after giving full and appropriate weight to the interests 
of all affected consumers, the countervailing benefits to consumers 
that flow from the practice of making covered short-term and longer-
term balloon-payment loans without making an ability-to-repay 
determination outweigh the substantial injury that the Bureau 
considered in the 2017 Final Rule to not be reasonably avoidable by 
consumers. The Bureau invites comment on these preliminary conclusions.
ii. Countervailing Benefits to Competition
    As with its discussion of the countervailing benefits to consumers, 
the 2017 Final Rule analyzed the countervailing benefits to competition 
through the lens of the principal step-down exemption. Specifically, 
the 2017 Final Rule acknowledged that ``a certain amount of market 
consolidation may impact . . . competition'' but asserted that this 
effect would be modest and would not reduce meaningful access to credit 
because of the principal step-down exemption.\275\ For the reasons 
previously discussed, the Bureau now preliminarily believes that the 
Bureau should not have factored into its analysis this exemption but 
rather should have analyzed the effect on competition from the 
identified practice under which lenders would be able to make upwards 
of 90 percent of the loans they would not be able to make if the 
identified practice were determined to be unfair. The Bureau 
preliminarily believes that the loss of revenue from these loans and in 
the corresponding reduction in supply would have a dramatic effect on 
competition, especially if lenders cannot stay in business in the face 
of such decreases in revenue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \275\ 82 FR 54472, 54611-12.
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    The Bureau recognizes that because of State-law regulation of 
interest rates, the effect of reduced competition may not manifest 
itself in higher prices. However, payday and vehicle title lenders 
compete on non-price dimensions and a rule which caused at least a 90 
percent reduction in revenue and supply would likely materially impact 
such competition.
    The Bureau also notes that, as the 2017 Final Rule recognized, a 
number of innovative products are seeking to compete with traditional 
short-term lenders by assisting consumers in finding ways to draw on 
the accrued cash value of wages they have earned but not yet paid, and 
that some of these products take the form of extensions of credit.\276\ 
Other innovators are providing emergency assistance at no cost to 
consumers through a tip model.\277\ The 2017 Final Rule included 
exclusions to accommodate these emerging products, thereby recognizing 
that providers offering these products were doing so without assessing 
the consumers' ability to repay without reborrowing. The Bureau 
therefore preliminarily believes that a prohibition of making short-
term or balloon-payment loans without assessing consumers' ability to 
repay would constrain innovation in this market.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \276\ 12 CFR 1041.3(d)(7).
    \277\ 12 CFR 1041.3(d)(8).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau preliminarily believes that these countervailing 
benefits to competition provide an additional reason to conclude that 
the countervailing benefits to consumers and to competition outweigh 
the substantial injury that the Bureau considered in the 2017 Final 
Rule to not be reasonably avoidable by consumers. The Bureau invites 
comment on these preliminary conclusions.
3. Lack of Understanding of Material Risks, Costs, or Conditions
    As discussed in part V.A.2 above, under section 1031(d)(2)(A) of 
the Dodd-Frank Act it is an abusive practice to take unreasonable 
advantage of a lack of understanding on the part of the consumer of the 
material risks, costs, or

[[Page 4275]]

conditions of a consumer financial product or service. In the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau took a 
similar approach to interpreting this provision as it took with respect 
to the reasonable avoidability element of unfairness. The Bureau 
interpreted the statute to mean that consumers lack understanding if 
they fail to understand either their personal ``likelihood of being 
exposed to the risks'' of the product or service in question or ``the 
severity of the kinds of costs and harms that may occur.'' \278\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \278\ 82 FR 54472, 54617.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Unlike the elements of unfairness specified in section 1031(c) of 
the Dodd-Frank Act, the elements of abusiveness do not have a long 
history or governing precedents. Rather, the Dodd-Frank Act marked the 
first time that Congress defined ``abusive acts or practices'' as 
generally unlawful in the consumer financial services sphere. The 
Bureau preliminarily believes that this element of the abusiveness test 
for this proposal should be treated as similar to reasonable 
avoidability. That is, the Bureau now preliminarily believes that the 
approach taken in the 2017 Final Rule was problematic, as discussed 
below, and now applies an approach under which ``lack of 
understanding'' would not require payday borrowers to have a specific 
understanding of their personal risks such that they can accurately 
predict how long they will be in debt after taking out a covered short-
term or longer-term balloon-payment loan. Rather, the Bureau 
preliminarily believes that consumers have a sufficient understanding 
under section 1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act if they appreciate 
the general risks of harm associated with the products sufficient for 
them to consider taking reasonable steps to avoid that harm. The Bureau 
in the 2017 Final Rule did not offer evidence that consumers lack such 
an understanding with respect to the material risks, costs or 
conditions on covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans. 
In the absence of such evidence, the Bureau preliminarily believes it 
should not have concluded in the 2017 Final Rule that the identified 
practice was an abusive act or practice pursuant to section 
1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
    For these reasons, which are set forth in more detail in part V.C.1 
above regarding reasonable avoidability, the Bureau has preliminarily 
determined that its interpretation of ``lack of understanding on the 
part of the consumer of the material risks, costs, or conditions of the 
product or service'' in the 2017 Final Rule was too broad. The Bureau 
seeks comment on this issue, including comment on how the Bureau should 
interpret section 1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
4. Taking Unreasonable Advantage
    The Bureau is also reconsidering how the 2017 Final Rule applied 
section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act, which proscribes abusive 
conduct that takes ``unreasonable advantage'' of certain consumer 
vulnerabilities enumerated in the statute. As described above, the 
Bureau focused on two such vulnerabilities in connection with 
evaluating lenders making covered loans without making an ability-to-
repay determination--both lack of consumer understanding and inability 
to protect their own interests. The Bureau stated that there comes a 
point at which a financial institution's conduct in leveraging its 
superior information or bargaining power relative to consumers becomes 
unreasonable advantage-taking, and that the Dodd-Frank Act delegates to 
the Bureau the responsibility for determining when advantage-taking has 
become unreasonable.\279\ The Bureau's unreasonable advantage analysis 
applied a multi-factor analysis, concluding that:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \279\ Id. at 54621.

    At a minimum lenders take unreasonable advantage of borrowers 
when they [1] develop lending practices that are atypical in the 
broader consumer financial marketplace, [2] take advantage of 
particular consumer vulnerabilities, [3] rely on a business model 
that is directly inconsistent with the manner in which the product 
is marketed to consumers, and [4] eliminate or sharply limit 
feasible conditions on the offering of the product (such as 
underwriting and amortization, for example) that would reduce or 
mitigate harm for a substantial population of consumers.\280\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \280\ Id. at 54623 (bracketed numbers added).

    The Bureau has decided to reassess this application of section 
1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act. This inquiry is inherently a question 
of judgment in light of the factual, legal, and policy factors that can 
inform what is reasonable or unreasonable in particular circumstances. 
Upon further consideration, the Bureau preliminarily concludes that the 
factors cited in the 2017 Final Rule do not constitute unreasonable 
advantage-taking.
    First, insofar as the Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule focused on the 
atypicality of granting credit without assessing ability to repay, the 
Bureau now questions whether this practice is an appropriate indicator 
of unreasonable advantage-taking. Although the Bureau pointed to the 
fact that the practice of extending credit without assessing ability to 
repay is an unusual one, it is actually common with regard to credit 
products for consumers who lack traditional indicia of 
creditworthiness--for example, credit products for consumers with 
little or no credit history, loans for students, or reverse mortgages 
for the elderly. Further, the Bureau believes that innovators and new 
entrants into product markets often engage in practices that deviate 
from established industry norms and conventions. Many such practices 
are by definition atypical. Thus, to presume that atypicality is 
inherently suggestive of unreasonable advantage-taking would risk 
stifling innovation. These all suggest that even if the lack of 
underwriting were atypical, it still should not be viewed as inherently 
suggestive of unreasonable advantage-taking, given differences between 
particular consumer financial markets and the needs of their respective 
consumers.
    Second, on taking advantage of particular consumer vulnerabilities, 
as discussed above, the Bureau preliminarily believes that limitations 
in the Rule's evidentiary record, including issues related to the Mann 
Study and the Pew Study, call into question the Bureau's findings 
regarding the degree of vulnerabilities of covered short-term and 
longer-term balloon-payment loan users. But even if the Bureau's 
findings in the 2017 Final Rule regarding user vulnerabilities are 
valid, the Bureau now preliminarily does not believe that they would 
independently support an unreasonable advantage-taking determination. 
The ``takes unreasonable advantage of'' element in section 1031(d)(2) 
of the Dodd-Frank Act requires that an act or practice take advantage 
of a vulnerability specified by, as relevant here, section 
1031(d)(2)(A) (lack of understanding) or section 1031(d)(2)(B) 
(inability to protect). The Bureau now believes that the 2017 Final 
Rule did not adequately explain how the practice of not reasonably 
assessing a consumer's ability to repay a loan according to its terms 
leveraged particular consumer vulnerabilities. On the contrary, covered 
short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans are made available to 
the general public on standard terms, and the 2017 Final Rule did not 
conclude, for example, that lenders had the ability to identify 
consumers with particular vulnerabilities prior to lending and use that 
information to treat some consumers differently than others, for 
example, by charging them different

[[Page 4276]]

prices or including different terms in contracts for them.\281\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \281\ As previously noted, due to similarities between the 
unfairness provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act and the FTC Act, FTC Act 
precedent informs the Bureau's understanding of unfairness under the 
Dodd-Frank Act. Although Dodd-Frank Act abusiveness authority is 
distinct, FTC Act precedent provides some factual examples that may 
help illustrate leveraging particular vulnerabilities of consumers. 
See, e.g., FTC Policy Statement, Int'l Harvester, 104 F.T.C. at 1074 
(unfair practices may include exercising ``undue influence over 
highly susceptible classes of purchasers, as by promoting fraudulent 
`cures' to seriously ill cancer patients''); Ideal Toy, 64 F.T.C. 
297, 310 (1964) (``False, misleading and deceptive advertising 
claims beamed at children tend to exploit unfairly a consumer group 
unqualified by age or experience to anticipate or appreciate the 
possibility that representations may be exaggerated or untrue.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Third, the Bureau is concerned that the Rule conflated the 
significance of a consumer's understanding of a company's business 
model with the consumer's understanding of that company's products or 
services. The Bureau stated that lenders' ``business model--unbeknownst 
to borrowers--depends on repeated re-borrowing.'' \282\ However, 
whether or not consumers understand the lender's revenue structure does 
not in itself determine whether they lack understanding about the 
features of the loan that they choose to take out. But the Bureau 
asserted that the two are connected, because lenders' business models 
are ``directly inconsistent with the manner in which the product is 
marketed to consumers.'' \283\ The Bureau nevertheless did not have 
evidence, for example, that consumers erroneously believe or are 
misinformed by lenders that loans are offered only to those consumers 
who have the ability to repay without reborrowing. The Bureau doubts 
that an inconsistency between a company's business model and its 
marketing of a product or service is a pertinent factor in assessing 
whether the method of deciding to extend credit constitutes 
unreasonable advantage-taking. The Bureau noted that ``covered short-
term loans are marketed as being intended for short-term or emergency 
use,'' \284\ but that appears to be a statement about how most 
consumers use these loans, not a statement about the lenders' revenue 
structures.\285\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \282\ 82 FR 54472, 54621.
    \283\ Id. at 54623.
    \284\ Id. at 54616.
    \285\ Moreover, to the extent that certain lenders are using 
particular language to mislead consumers regarding either the 
features of loans or the lenders' own revenue structures, it is not 
clear that this is related to a failure to make an ability-to-repay 
determination. Rather, that would appear to be a fact-specific 
problem that is already unlawful under the Dodd-Frank Act's 
prohibition on deceptive acts or practices. See 12 U.S.C. 5531(a).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Fourth, on eliminating or sharply limiting feasible conditions that 
would reduce harm for a substantial portion of consumers, the Bureau 
questions whether a lender's decision not to offer such conditions 
constitutes unreasonable advantage-taking in this context. As discussed 
above with respect to atypicality, the Bureau does not believe that a 
lender's forgoing underwriting in this context necessarily indicates 
unreasonable advantage-taking.\286\ Further, a lender's decision not to 
offer a short-term, non-amortizing product may be reasonable given that 
some States constrain the offering of longer-term products and, even if 
State law were not a constraint, longer-term, amortizing products would 
require lenders to assume credit risk over a longer period of time. The 
Bureau therefore now preliminarily does not believe this factor is of 
significant probative value concerning whether the identified practices 
takes unreasonable advantage of consumer vulnerabilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \286\ Further, the Bureau notes that this factor, which suggests 
that a lender takes unreasonable advantage by not assessing ability 
to repay because, inter alia, the lender does not underwrite, relies 
to a significant extent on circular logic. By presuming the 
unreasonable advantage-taking determination in this manner, the 
Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule neglected to offer a meaningful 
rationale for the weight that it placed on the failure to underwrite 
in the fourth factor of the analysis, and the Bureau preliminarily 
believes that it should not be given this weight.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For these reasons, the Bureau preliminarily believes that it does 
not have a sufficient basis to find that lenders take unreasonable 
advantage of consumers under section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act 
by making covered short-term loans or covered longer-term balloon-
payment loans without reasonably assessing the consumer's ability to 
repay the loan according to its terms.
    The Bureau seeks comment on this issue, including how the Bureau 
should interpret ``taking unreasonable advantage'' and the appropriate 
test for distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable conduct 
under section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Bureau also seeks 
comment about the extent to which firms make loans for other consumer 
financial products without engaging in traditional underwriting, such 
as what a bank would do to underwrite an automobile loan or consumer 
finance lender would do for a small business loan.
5. Conclusion
    Based on its analysis in parts V.C.1 through V.C.4 above, the 
Bureau preliminarily believes that the findings of an unfair and 
abusive practice as identified in Sec.  1041.4 rested on applications 
of sections 1031(c) and (d) of the Dodd-Frank Act that the Bureau 
should no longer use. Specifically, the Bureau preliminarily concludes 
that the Bureau should no longer rely upon the 2017 Final Rule's: (1) 
Application of the reasonable avoidability element of unfairness under 
section 1031(c)(1)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act by finding that consumers 
could not reasonably avoid injury; (2) application of the 
countervailing benefits element under section 1031(c)(1)(B) of the 
Dodd-Frank Act and valuation of certain countervailing benefits under 
that section; (3) application of the lack of consumer understanding 
prong of abusiveness under section 1031(d)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act; 
and (4) application of the taking unreasonable advantage element of 
abusiveness under section 1031(d)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
    Based on these preliminary findings, the Bureau now proposes to 
rescind Sec.  1041.4, which identifies the failure to conduct an 
ability-to-repay assessment in connection with making a covered short-
term or longer-term balloon-payment loan as an unfair and abusive 
practice. The identification of an unfair and abusive practice as set 
out in Sec.  1041.4 was predicated on certain factual findings 
established in the 2017 Final Rule as well as a particular application 
of section 1031(c) and (d) of the Dodd-Frank Act adopted in the 2017 
Final Rule. The Bureau's preliminary conclusions here mean that neither 
factual nor legal grounds sustain the identification of an unfair and 
abusive practice as set out in Sec.  1041.4.
    The Bureau requests comment on these legal conclusions, the 
application and understanding of these specific provisions of section 
1031(c) and (d) of the Dodd-Frank Act, and the application of the 
factual findings in part V.B above to these sections that would be 
pertinent to the Bureau's preliminary determination that there are no 
grounds to identify an unfair or abusive practice in Sec.  1041.4, 
which identifies the failure to conduct an ability-to-repay analysis in 
connection with a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loan as an unfair and abusive practice.

D. Consideration of Alternatives

    The Bureau generally considers alternatives in its rulemakings. 
Here, the context for the consideration of alternatives is that the 
Bureau is proposing to rescind the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule, which were based on the Bureau's discretionary 
authority, not a

[[Page 4277]]

specific statutory directive.\287\ The Bureau has preliminarily 
concluded as a matter of policy, as outlined in part V.B above, that a 
more robust and reliable evidentiary record is needed to support a rule 
that would have such dramatic impacts on the viability of payday 
lenders, competition among payday lenders, and the availability of 
payday loans to consumers who want one, and that the findings of an 
unfair or abusive practice as set out in Sec.  1041.4 rested on 
applications of the relevant standards that the Bureau should no longer 
use, as detailed in part V.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \287\ 12 U.S.C. 5531(b) (``The Bureau may prescribe rules 
applicable to a covered person or service provider identifying as 
unlawful unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices.'') 
(emphasis added).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In light of this posture, the Bureau does not believe that the 
alternative interventions to the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
considered in the 2017 Final Rule are viable alternatives to the 
Bureau's proposed rescission of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions. 
For example, one alternative analyzed in the 2017 Final Rule was a 
payment-to-income test, offered in lieu of the specific underwriting 
criteria established by the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions. In this 
context, the payment-to-income test, limits on the number of loans in a 
sequence, and other alternatives that would rely on authority under 
section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank Act are not viable alternatives to 
rescission, because the Bureau is proposing to rescind the underlying 
findings concerning the existence of an unfair and abusive 
practice.\288\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \288\ This includes, for instance, the payment-to-income 
alternative, the various State law regulatory approaches such as 
loan caps, and other interventions. See 82 FR 54472, 54636-40.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau also does not believe that the expenditure of 
substantial Bureau resources on the development of possible alternative 
theories of unfair or abusive practices and corollary preventative 
remedies is warranted given the likely complexity of such an endeavor.
    Additionally, the Bureau is not choosing to exercise its rulemaking 
discretion in order to pursue new disclosure requirements pursuant to 
section 1032 of the Dodd-Frank Act. As explained in the Bureau's 
preliminary findings set out in parts V.B and V.C above, there are 
indications that consumers potentially enter into these transactions 
with a general understanding of the risks entailed, including the risk 
of reborrowing. It is thus not clear to the Bureau at this time what 
purpose would be served by requiring disclosures as to the general 
risks of reborrowing be provided to these consumers. Further, as 
previously noted, a Bureau analysis of a study of State-mandated payday 
loan disclosures found that such disclosures had a limited impact on 
reducing payday loan use and, in particular, reborrowing, which 
suggests that consumers already have the information they deem 
relevant. Moreover, developing the evidentiary basis for disclosure 
requirements would be challenging and the development of disclosures 
would likely require the dedication of resources that does not seem 
warranted given the above factors and given the value of those 
resources if used to protect consumers through other Bureau activities, 
such as law enforcement. However, the Bureau does intend, in the normal 
course of its market monitoring activities, to continue to review 
whether consumers have the information they need to make informed 
decisions in the selection and use of short-term and balloon-payment 
loans.
    The Bureau requests comment on its consideration of alternatives to 
the rescission of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, including its 
preliminary conclusion that the alternatives to the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions, as articulated in the 2017 Final Rule, are not 
viable alternatives to the rescission of the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions in light of the Bureau's factual and legal findings set 
forth in parts V.B and V.C above.

E. Conclusion

    The Bureau believes that each of the concerns raised above are 
sufficiently serious in their own right to merit reconsideration of the 
2017 Final Rule, and even more so when considered in combination. As 
described above, the Bureau believes that, in light of the 2017 Final 
Rule's dramatic market impacts, the studies on which it primarily 
relied in the Rule do not provide a sufficiently robust and reliable 
basis for finding that consumers cannot reasonably avoid injury or 
protect their interests, and do not understand the material risks, 
costs, and conditions of the loans. The Bureau also now preliminarily 
believes that the 2017 Final Rule used a problematic approach in 
applying section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank Act in determining what level 
of individualized understanding would be necessary to make the findings 
necessary to support a determination that the identified practice was 
unfair and abusive; in evaluating the countervailing benefits to 
consumers and to competition of the identified practice; and in 
evaluating whether the factors set forth in the 2017 Final Rule are the 
appropriate standard for taking unreasonable advantage of consumers 
and, if so, whether the Bureau properly applied that standard. The 
Bureau preliminarily concludes that it is appropriate to propose 
rescinding the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final 
Rule. After many years of rulemaking, outstanding questions that the 
Bureau and other stakeholders have on whether the identified practice 
is unlawful and whether the Bureau intervention (i.e., the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions) is appropriate remain; the Bureau therefore 
preliminarily concludes that significantly more time, money, and other 
resources would be needed from the Bureau, industry, consumers, and 
other stakeholders to engage in the research and analysis required to 
develop specific evidence that might support determining that the 
identified practice is unfair and abusive and that imposing an ability-
to-repay regulatory scheme is a necessary and appropriate response to 
that practice.
    The Bureau seeks comment on these preliminary determinations that 
each of the concerns raised above (set out in parts V.B and V.C) are 
sufficiently serious in their own right to merit rescission of the 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions.
    Because the 2017 Final Rule's constellation of Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions was premised on the existence of Sec.  1041.4, 
which identified that the failure to conduct an ability-to-repay 
assessment constitutes an unfair and abusive practice,\289\ the Bureau 
also preliminarily finds that rescinding Sec.  1041.4 would also 
require rescinding the provisions setting forth the interventions that 
constitute the remedy for the practice because the Bureau only has 
legal authority to promulgate the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
where it has specifically identified an unfair or abusive act or 
practice.\290\ The Bureau also seeks comment on rescission of the 
provisions in the 2017 Final Rule that

[[Page 4278]]

were predicated on the unfair and abusive practice identified in Sec.  
1041.4. These include the mandatory underwriting requirements in Sec.  
1041.5,\291\ a conditional exemption from those underwriting 
requirements in Sec.  1041.6,\292\ and related reporting and 
recordkeeping requirements in Sec. Sec.  1041.10 through 1041.12.\293\ 
The technical aspects of the proposal to rescind and additional, more 
specific questions with regard to the specific amendments to the 2017 
Final Rule are discussed in more detail in part VI below.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \289\ See comment 4-1 (noting that lenders that comply with 
Sec.  1041.6 in making covered short-term loans have not committed 
unfair and abusive practices under Sec.  1041.4 and are not subject 
to Sec.  1041.5).
    \290\ See 12 U.S.C. 5531(b) (``The Bureau may prescribe rules 
applicable to a covered person or service provider identifying as 
unlawful unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices.''); see 
also id. at 5531(c) (stating that ``[t]he Bureau shall have no 
authority under this section to declare an act or practice . . . 
unlawful on the grounds that such act or practice is unfair'' unless 
the act or practice meets the elements of unfairness); id. at 
5531(d) (stating that ``[t]he Bureau shall have no authority under 
this section to declare an act or practice abusive . . . unless the 
act or practice'' meets one of two tests of abusiveness).
    \291\ 12 CFR 1041.5 (requiring that providers make a reasonable 
determination that the consumer would be able to make the payments 
on the loan and be able to meet the consumer's basic living expenses 
and other major financial obligations without needing to reborrow 
over the ensuing 30 days).
    \292\ 12 CFR 1041.6 (permitting providers, in lieu of following 
Sec.  1041.5, to make a covered short-term loan without meeting all 
the specific underwriting criteria set out above, as long as the 
loan satisfies certain prescribed terms, the lender confirms that 
the consumer meets specified borrowing history conditions, and the 
lender provides required disclosures to the consumer).
    \293\ 12 CFR 1041.10 (requiring providers to furnish certain 
information); 12 CFR 1041.11 (establishing requirements for 
registered information systems); 12 CFR 1041.12 (requiring providers 
to establish and follow a compliance program and retain certain 
records).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Finally, the Bureau invites comments on any other issues or factors 
not specifically identified above that may nonetheless be relevant to 
its proposal to rescind the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule.

VI. Section-by-Section Analysis

    As described in greater detail in part V above, the Bureau is 
proposing to rescind Sec. Sec.  1041.4 and 1041.5 of the 2017 Final 
Rule, which respectively identify the failure to reasonably determine 
whether consumers have the ability to repay certain covered loans as an 
unfair and abusive practice and establish certain underwriting 
requirements to prevent that practice. The Bureau is also proposing to 
rescind certain derivative provisions that are premised on these two 
core sections, including a conditional exemption for certain loans in 
Sec.  1041.6, two provisions (Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11) that 
facilitate lenders' ability to obtain certain information about 
consumers' past borrowing history from information systems that have 
registered with the Bureau, and certain recordkeeping requirements in 
Sec.  1041.12. The Bureau preliminarily concludes that, if Sec. Sec.  
1041.4 and 1041.5 are rescinded, these derivative provisions would no 
longer serve the purposes for which they were included in the 2017 
Final Rule and should be rescinded as well.
    This part VI describes the particular modifications the Bureau is 
proposing in order to effect the rescission of these various Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions. Specifically, as discussed in more detail 
below, the Bureau is proposing to remove in their entirety the 
regulatory text and associated commentary for subpart B of the Rule 
(Sec. Sec.  1041.4 through 1041.6) and certain provisions of subpart D 
(Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11, and parts of Sec.  1041.12). The 
Bureau is also proposing modifications to other portions of regulatory 
text and commentary in the 2017 Final Rule that refer to the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions or the requirements therein.
    As this part VI is describing the specific modifications to 
regulatory text and commentary that the Bureau is proposing, it refers 
to ``removing'' text rather than ``rescinding'' it, consistent with the 
language agencies use to instruct the Office of the Federal Register as 
to changes to be made in the Code of Federal Regulations.\294\ In order 
to avoid confusion, the Bureau is not proposing to renumber the 
sections or paragraphs that it is not removing; rather, the Bureau is 
proposing that those section and paragraph numbers be marked as 
``[Reserved]'' so that the remaining provisions would continue with the 
same numbering as they have currently.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \294\ As noted previously, while most of the 2017 Final Rule has 
a compliance date of August 19, 2019, the Rule became effective on 
January 16, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Due to changes in requirements by the Office of the Federal 
Register, when amending commentary the Bureau is now required to 
reprint certain subsections being amended in their entirety rather than 
providing more targeted amendatory instructions. The sections of 
commentary included in this document show the language of those 
sections if the Bureau adopts its changes as proposed. The Bureau is 
releasing an unofficial, informal redline to assist industry and other 
stakeholders in reviewing the changes that it is proposing to make to 
the regulatory text and commentary of the 2017 Final Rule.\295\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \295\ This redline can be found on the Bureau's regulatory 
implementation page for the Rule at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/policy-compliance/guidance/payday-lending-rule/. If any conflicts 
exist between the redline and the text of the 2017 Final Rule or 
this NPRM, the documents published in the Federal Register are the 
controlling documents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau seeks comment on the changes to the regulatory text and 
commentary that it is proposing in this part VI, and in particular 
whether any of the changes would affect implementation of the Payment 
Provisions. The Bureau also seeks comment on whether any other 
modifications not identified herein would be necessary to effect 
rescission of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions as proposed.

Subpart A--General

Section 1041.1 Authority and Purpose
1(b) Purpose
    Section 1041.1 sets forth the Rule's authority and purpose. The 
Bureau is proposing to remove the last sentence of Sec.  1041.1(b), 
which currently provides that part 1041 also prescribes processes and 
criteria for registration of information systems. The Bureau is 
proposing this change for consistency with the proposed removal of 
Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11 discussed below.
Section 1041.2 Definitions
2(a) Definitions
2(a)(5) Consummation
    Section 1041.2(a)(5) defines the term consummation. Comment (a)(5)-
2 describes what types of loan modifications trigger underwriting 
requirements pursuant to Sec.  1041.5. The Bureau is proposing to 
remove comment 2(a)(5)-1 for consistency with the proposed removal of 
Sec.  1041.5 discussed below.
2(a)(14) Loan Sequence or Sequence
    Section 1041.2(a)(14) defines the terms loan sequence and sequence 
to mean a series of consecutive or concurrent covered short-term loans, 
or covered longer-term balloon loans, or a combination thereof, in 
which each of the loans (other than the first loan) is made during the 
period in which the consumer has a covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loan outstanding and for 30 days thereafter. These 
terms are used in Sec. Sec.  1041.5, 1041.6, and 1041.12(b)(3), and 
related commentary. The Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  
1041.2(a)(14) for consistency with the proposed removal of the 
provisions in which these terms appear, as discussed below.
2(a)(19) Vehicle Security
    Section 1041.2(a)(19) defines the term vehicle security to 
generally mean an interest in a consumer's motor vehicle obtained by 
the lender or service provider as a condition of the credit. This term 
is used in Sec. Sec.  1041.6 and 1041.12(b)(3) and in commentary 
accompanying Sec. Sec.  1041.5(a)(8) and 1041.6. The Bureau is 
proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.2(a)(19) for consistency 
with the proposed removal

[[Page 4279]]

of the provisions in which this term appears, as discussed below.
    The Bureau requests comment on whether there are any other 
definitional terms or portions thereof, in addition to the terms loan 
sequence or sequence and vehicle security, that it should similarly 
remove for consistency with the proposed rescission of the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions.
Section 1041.3 Scope of Coverage; Exclusions; Exemptions
3(e) Alternative Loan
    Section 1041.3(e) provides a conditional exemption for alternative 
loans from the requirements of part 1041, which are covered loans that 
satisfy the conditions and requirements set forth in Sec.  1041.3(e). 
The Bureau is proposing to revise two comments accompanying Sec.  
1041.3(e) that reference the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions, as 
described below.
3(e)(2) Borrowing History Condition
    Section 1041.3(e)(2) addresses a consumer's borrowing history on 
other alternative loans. Comment 3(e)(2)-1 describes the relevant 
records a lender may use to determine that the consumer's borrowing 
history on alternative covered loans meets the criteria set forth in 
Sec.  1041.3(e)(2). The Bureau is proposing to revise the second 
sentence of this comment to remove language that refers to consumer 
reports obtained from information systems registered with the Bureau. 
The Bureau is proposing this change for consistency with the proposed 
removal of Sec.  1041.11 discussed below.
3(e)(3) Income Documentation Condition
    Section 1041.3(e)(2) requires a lender to maintain and comply with 
policies and procedures for documenting proof of recurring income. 
Comment 3(e)(3)-1 generally describes the income documentation policies 
and procedures that a lender must maintain to satisfy the income 
documentation condition of the conditional exemption. The Bureau is 
proposing to remove the second sentence of the comment, which 
distinguishes the income document condition of Sec.  1041.3(e)(3) from 
the income documentation procedures required by Sec.  1041.5(c)(2). The 
Bureau is proposing to revise this comment for consistency with the 
proposed removal of Sec.  1041.5 discussed below.

Subpart B--Underwriting

    Subpart B sets forth the rule's underwriting requirements in 
Sec. Sec.  1041.4 through 1041.6. The Bureau is proposing to remove and 
reserve the heading for subpart B; the removal of its contents is 
discussed below.
Section 1041.4 Identification of Unfair and Abusive Practice
    Section 1041.4 provides that it is an unfair and abusive practice 
for a lender to make covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loans without reasonably determining that the consumers will have the 
ability to repay the loans according to their terms. For the reasons 
set forth above, the Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  
1041.4 and to remove the commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.4.
Section 1041.5 Ability-to-Repay Determination Required
    Section 1041.5 generally requires a lender to make a reasonable 
determination that a consumer has the ability to repay a covered short-
term or a longer-term balloon-payment loan before making such a loan or 
increasing the credit available under such a loan. It also sets forth 
certain minimum requirements for how a lender may reasonably determine 
that a consumer has the ability to repay such a loan. For the reasons 
set forth above, the Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  
1041.5 and to remove the commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.5.
Section 1041.6 Conditional Exemption for Certain Covered Short-Term 
Loans
    Section 1041.6 provides a conditional exemption for covered short-
term loans that satisfy requirements set forth in Sec.  1041.6(b) 
through (e); Sec. Sec.  1041.4 and 1041.5 do not apply to such 
conditionally exempt loans. For the reasons set forth above and for 
consistency with the proposed removal of Sec. Sec.  1041.4 and 1041.5, 
the Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.6 and to 
remove the commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.6.

Subpart D--Information Furnishing, Recordkeeping, Anti-Evasion, and 
Severability

    Subpart D contains the rule's requirements regarding information 
furnishing (Sec.  1041.10), registered information systems (Sec.  
1041.11), and compliance programs and record retention (Sec.  1041.12); 
sets forth a prohibition against evasion (Sec.  1041.13); and addresses 
severability (Sec.  1041.14). The Bureau is proposing to remove the 
portion of the subpart's heading that refers to information furnishing 
for consistency with the proposed removal of Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 
1041.11. Specific revisions to this subpart's contents are discussed 
below.
Section 1041.10 Information Furnishing Requirements
    Among other things Sec. Sec.  1041.5 and 1041.6, discussed above, 
require lenders when making covered short-term and longer-term balloon-
payment loans to obtain consumer reports from information systems 
registered with the Bureau pursuant Sec.  1041.11. Section 1041.10, in 
turn, requires lenders to furnish certain information about each 
covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loan to each 
registered information system. For the reasons set forth above and for 
consistency with the other changes proposed herein, the Bureau is 
proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.10 and to remove the 
commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.10.
Section 1041.11 Registered Information Systems
    Section 1041.11 sets forth processes for information systems to 
register with the Bureau, describes the conditions that an entity must 
satisfy in order to become a registered information system, addresses 
notices of material change, suspension and revocation of a 
registration, and administrative appeals. For the reasons set forth 
above and for consistency with the other changes proposed herein, the 
Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.11 and to remove 
the commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.11.
Section 1041.12 Compliance Program and Record Retention
12(a) Compliance Program
    Section 1041.12 provides that a lender making a covered loan must 
develop and follow written policies and procedures that are reasonably 
designed to ensure compliance with the requirements of part 1041. 
Comment 12(a)-1, in part, lists the various sections of the rule that 
must be addressed in the compliance program. The Bureau is proposing to 
remove from that comment the references to the ability-to-repay 
requirements in Sec.  1041.5, the alternative requirements in Sec.  
1041.6, and the requirements on furnishing loan information to 
registered and preliminarily registered information systems in Sec.  
1041.10.
    Comment 12(a)-2 explains that the written policies and procedures a 
lender must develop and follow under Sec.  1041.12(a) depend on the 
types of covered loans that the lender makes, and provides certain 
examples. The Bureau is proposing to remove this comment as its 
examples are largely focused on compliance with Sec. Sec.  1041.5, 
1041.6, and 1041.10. The Bureau does not believe that it is useful to 
retain the

[[Page 4280]]

remaining portion of this comment focusing solely on disclosures 
related to Sec.  1041.9, although of course it remains true pursuant to 
Sec.  1041.12(a) itself that a lender that makes a covered loan subject 
to the requirements of Sec.  1041.9 must develop and follow written 
policies and procedures to provide the required disclosures to 
consumers.
    The Bureau is proposing to make these changes for consistency with 
the proposed removal of Sec. Sec.  1041.5, 1041.6, and 1041.10 
discussed above.
12(b) Record Retention
    Section 1041.12(b) provides that a lender must retain evidence of 
compliance with part 1041 for 36 months after the date on which a 
covered loan ceases to be an outstanding loan. Section 1041.12(b)(1) 
through (4) sets forth particular requirements for retaining specific 
records, including retention of the loan agreement and documentation 
obtained in connection with originating a covered short-term or longer-
term balloon-payment loan (Sec.  1041.12(b)(1)); retention of 
electronic records in tabular format for covered short-term or longer-
term balloon-payment loans regarding origination calculations and 
determinations under Sec.  1041.5 ((Sec.  1041.12(b)(2)) and as well as 
type, terms, and performance (Sec.  1041.12(b)(3)); and retention of 
records relating to payment practices for covered loans (Sec.  
1041.12(b)(4)). Proposed revisions to the regulatory text of Sec.  
1041.12(b)(1) through (3), and related commentary, are discussed in 
turn further below.
    Comment 12(b)-1 addresses record retention requirements generally. 
The Bureau is proposing to remove the portion of this comment 
explaining that a lender is required to retain various categories of 
documentation and information specifically in connection with the 
underwriting and performance of covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans, while retaining (with minor revisions for 
clarity) the reference to records concerning payment practices in 
connection with covered loans. The comment also explains that the items 
listed in Sec.  1041.12(b) are non-exhaustive as to the records that 
may need to be retained as evidence of compliance with part 1041. The 
Bureau is proposing to remove the remainder of this sentence, which 
specifically refers to loan origination and underwriting, terms and 
performance, and payment practices (the specific mention of which is no 
longer necessary if the other references are removed). The Bureau is 
proposing these changes for consistency with the proposed removal of 
Sec. Sec.  1041.4 through 1041.6 discussed above as well as the 
proposed changes to Sec.  1041.12(b)(1) discussed below.
12(b)(1) Retention of Loan Agreement and Documentation Obtained in 
Connection With Originating a Covered Short-Term or Covered Longer-Term 
Balloon-Payment Loan
    Section 1041.12(b)(1) requires that, in order to comply with the 
requirements in Sec.  1041.12(b), a lender must retain or be able to 
reproduce an image of the loan agreement and certain documentation 
obtained in connection with the origination of a covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loan. The Bureau is proposing to remove the 
language in the heading and in the introductory text for Sec.  
1041.12(b)(1) that refers to the certain documentation obtained in 
connection with a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loan, as well as the entirety of Sec.  1041.12(b)(1)(i) through (iii) 
that specifies particular categories of such documentation. As 
proposed, the remainder of this provision would require a lender to 
retain or be able to reproduce an image of the loan agreement for each 
covered loan. Retaining a copy of the loan agreement is necessary for 
all lenders, pursuant to the requirement in Sec.  1041.12(b) that 
lenders retain evidence of compliance for covered loans, in order to 
determine covered loan status for purposes of determining compliance 
with the Payment Provisions; the Bureau is proposing to explicitly 
retain this requirement in Sec.  1041.12(b)(1), for all covered loans, 
to avoid potential confusion. The Bureau is also proposing to remove 
the commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.12(b)(1). The Bureau is 
proposing these changes for consistency with the other changes proposed 
herein.
12(b)(2) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding Origination 
Calculations and Determinations for a Covered Short-Term or Covered 
Longer-Term Balloon-Payment Loan Under Sec.  1041.5
    Section 1041.12(b)(2) requires lenders to retain records regarding 
origination calculations and determinations for a covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loan, including specific required 
information listed in Sec.  1041.12(b)(2)(i) through (v). It requires 
lenders to retain these records in an electronic, tabular format. For 
consistency with the proposed removal of Sec.  1041.5, the Bureau is 
proposing to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.12(b)(2) and to remove the 
commentary accompanying Sec.  1041.12(b)(2).
12(b)(3) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding Type, Terms, 
and Performance for Covered Short-Term or Covered Longer-Term Balloon-
Payment Loans
    Section 1041.12(b)(3) requires lenders to retain records regarding 
the type, terms, and performance of a covered short-term or longer-term 
balloon-payment loan, including specific required information listed in 
Sec.  1041.12(b)(3)(i) through (vii). It requires lenders to retain 
these records in an electronic, tabular format. The Bureau is proposing 
to remove and reserve Sec.  1041.12(b)(3) and to remove the commentary 
accompanying Sec.  1041.12(b)(3), for consistency with the proposed 
removal of Sec. Sec.  1041.5 and 1041.6 discussed above.
12(b)(5) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding Payment 
Practices for Covered Loans
    Section 1041.12(b)(5) requires lenders to retain records regarding 
the payment practices for covered loans, including specific required 
information listed in Sec.  1041.12(b)(5)(i) and (ii). It requires 
lenders to retain these records in an electronic, tabular format. For 
consistency with the other changes proposed herein, the Bureau is 
proposing to revise comment 12(b)(5)-1 by removing most of its content, 
which focuses on compliance with Sec.  1041.12(b)(2) and (3) in 
conjunction with Sec.  1041.12(b)(5), and in its place the Bureau is 
proposing to incorporate the description of how a lender complies with 
the requirement to retain records in a tabular format, which is 
currently set forth in comment 12(b)(2)-1. The Bureau is also proposing 
to revise comment 12(b)(3)-1 to reflect the proposed change to Sec.  
1041.12(b)(3) and to incorporate the description of how a lender 
complies with the requirement to retain records in a tabular format. 
This description is currently included in comment 12(b)(2)-1. The 
Bureau is also proposing to remove the cross-reference to Sec.  
1041.12(b)(2) in the description of how records must be retained, and 
to remove the final sentence of the commentary discussing association 
of records under Sec.  1041.12(b)(5) with unique loan and consumer 
identifiers in Sec.  1041.12(b)(3) as the Bureau is proposing to remove 
those recordkeeping requirements from Sec.  1041.12(b)(3).

Appendix A to Part 1041--Model Forms

A-1 Model Form for First Sec.  1041.6 Loan
    Section 1041.6(e)(2)(i) requires a lender that makes a first loan 
in sequence of loans under the conditional

[[Page 4281]]

exemption in Sec.  1041.6 to provide a consumer with a notice that 
includes certain information and statements, using language that is 
substantially similar to the language set forth in Model Form A-1. For 
the reasons sets forth above and for consistency with the proposed 
removal of Sec.  1041.6, the Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve 
Model Form A-1.
A-2 Model Form for Third Sec.  1041.6 Loan
    Section 1041.6(e)(2)(ii) requires a lender that makes a third loan 
in sequence of loans under the conditional exemption in Sec.  1041.6 to 
provide a consumer with a notice that includes certain information and 
statements, using language that is substantially similar to the 
language set forth in Model Form A-2. For the reasons sets forth above 
and for consistency with the proposed removal of Sec.  1041.6, the 
Bureau is proposing to remove and reserve Model Form A-2.

VII. Compliance and Effective Dates

    The Bureau is proposing that the final rule take effect 60 days 
after publication in the Federal Register.\296\ As discussed above, the 
current compliance date for the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule is August 19, 2019, which the Bureau has separately 
proposed elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register to delay by 15 
months, to November 19, 2020. After considering comments received on 
that proposal, the Bureau intends to publish a final rule with respect 
to the compliance date for the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule. Likewise, after considering comments received on this 
proposal, the Bureau expects to publish a final rule with respect to 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions themselves. The Bureau seeks 
comment on this aspect of the proposal.
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    \296\ Section 553(d) of the APA generally requires that the 
effective date of a final rule be at least 30 days after publication 
of that final rule, except for (1) a substantive rule which grants 
or recognizes an exemption or relieves a restriction; (2) 
interpretive rules or statements of policy; or (3) as otherwise 
provided by the agency for good cause found and published with the 
rule. 5 U.S.C. 553(d). If finalized, this proposal would not 
establish any requirements; instead, it would rescind the relevant 
provisions of the 2017 Final Rule. Accordingly, if finalized this 
proposal would be a substantive rule which relieves a restriction 
that is exempt from section 553(d) of the APA.
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VIII. Dodd-Frank Act Section 1022(b)(2) Analysis

A. Overview

    In developing this proposal, the Bureau has considered the 
potential benefits, costs, and impacts as required by section 
1022(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.\297\ Specifically, section 
1022(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act calls for the Bureau to consider 
the potential benefits and costs of a regulation to consumers and 
covered persons, including the potential reduction of access by 
consumers to consumer financial products or services, the impact on 
depository institutions and credit unions with $10 billion or less in 
total assets as described in section 1026 of the Dodd-Frank Act, and 
the impact on consumers in rural areas.
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    \297\ 12 U.S.C. 5512(b)(2)(A).
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    In advance of issuing this proposal, the Bureau has consulted with 
the prudential regulators and the Federal Trade Commission, including 
consultation regarding consistency with any prudential, market, or 
systemic objectives administered by such agencies.
1. The Need for Federal Regulatory Action
    As explained above, the Bureau now preliminarily believes that, in 
light of the 2017 Final Rule's dramatic market impacts as detailed in 
the section 1022(b)(2) analysis accompanying the 2017 Final Rule, its 
evidence is insufficient to support the findings that are necessary to 
conclude that the identified practices were unfair and abusive. The 
Bureau also now preliminarily believes that the finding of an unfair 
and abusive practice as identified in Sec.  1041.4 of the 2017 Final 
Rule rested on applications of sections 1031(c) and (d) of the Dodd-
Frank Act that the Bureau should no longer use. The Bureau therefore is 
proposing to rescind the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 
Final Rule because it preliminarily believes the facts and the law do 
not adequately support the conclusion that the identified practice 
meets the standard for unfairness or abusiveness under section 1031(c) 
and (d) of the Dodd-Frank Act.\298\
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    \298\ The 2017 Final Rule stated that the existence of a market 
failure supported the need for Federal regulatory action. As the 
Bureau now believes that there is not a need for the Federal 
regulatory action described in the 2017 Final Rule, it is not 
necessary for the Bureau here in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis to 
identify or address a market failure.
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2. Data and Evidence
    In the section 1022(b)(2) analysis that accompanied the 2017 Final 
Rule, the Bureau endeavored to consider comprehensively the economic 
benefits and costs that were likely to result from that Rule. These 
benefits and costs included direct pecuniary impacts, as well as non-
pecuniary impacts that the available evidence indicated were likely to 
result from the Rule, if the proposal were to be adopted. The Bureau 
relied on the then-available evidence to analyze the potential 
benefits, costs, and impacts of the Rule.
    In this section 1022(b)(2) analysis, the Bureau endeavors to 
consider comprehensively the economic benefits and costs that are 
likely to result from the proposal to rescind the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule, possibly including some 
indirect effects.\299\
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    \299\ Note that, in considering these ``second-order'' impacts, 
the Bureau focuses on those effects where research has established a 
plausible, causal link between the intervention and the benefits or 
costs.
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    Since the issuance of the 2017 Final Rule, the body of evidence 
bearing on benefits and costs has only slightly expanded. As such, with 
the exception of the new studies discussed below, the Bureau has 
considered the same information as it considered in the section 
1022(b)(2) analysis of the 2017 Final Rule, although as discussed in 
part V.B, the Bureau has altered its conclusion as to the weight to be 
accorded to the key evidence in finding an unfair and abusive act or 
practice as well as warranting regulatory intervention.\300\ The new 
research that has become available after the drafting of the 2017 Final 
Rule have relatively little impact on the Bureau's analysis compared to 
the evidence cited in the 2017 Final Rule, as the implications of this 
new evidence for total surplus and consumer welfare are less clear or 
probative than those of the previously considered evidence.
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    \300\ The same evidence may be evaluated differently for 
purposes of legal and economic analysis.
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    The Bureau invites submission of additional data and studies that 
can supplement those relied on in the 2017 Final Rule's analysis which 
form the predicate for the estimates here as well as comments on the 
analyses of benefits and costs contained in that Rule and relied on 
here. Specifically, in some instances the data to perform quantitative 
analyses of particular issues or effects are not available, or are 
quite limited, and submissions that would augment the current analysis 
are especially welcome. Absent these data, portions of the analysis to 
follow rely, at least in part, on qualitative evidence provided to the 
Bureau in previous comments, responses to RFIs, and academic papers; 
general economic principles; and the Bureau's experience and expertise 
in consumer financial markets. As such, many of the benefits, costs, 
and impacts in this proposal are presented in general terms or ranges 
(as

[[Page 4282]]

they were in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis of the 2017 Final Rule), 
rather than as point estimates.
    The Bureau also requests comment on potential alternatives.
3. Major Provisions and Coverage of the Proposed Rule
    In this analysis, the Bureau focuses on the benefits, costs, and 
impacts of the three major elements of the proposal: (1) The revocation 
of the 2017 Final Rule's requirement to reasonably determine borrowers' 
ability to repay covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans according to their terms (along with the conditional exemption 
allowing for a principal step-down approach to issuing a limited number 
of short-term loans); (2) the revocation of the recordkeeping 
requirements associated with (1); and (3) the revocation of the 2017 
Final Rule's requirements concerning furnishing provisions and their 
associated requirements for registered information systems.
    In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau delineated two major classes of 
short-term lenders it expected to be affected by the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions: Payday/unsecured short-term lenders, both 
storefront and online, and short-term vehicle title lenders.\301\ The 
Bureau also noted that at least one bank that was offering a deposit 
advance product was likely to be affected by the Rule's 
provisions.\302\ Similarly, any depository institution that might have 
considered offering a deposit advance product was likely to be affected 
by the Rule's provisions.\303\ The Bureau also recognized that some 
community banks and credit unions occasionally make short-term secured 
or unsecured loans, but noted the Bureau believed that those loans 
generally fall within the conditional exemption for alternative loans 
or the conditional exemption for accommodation loans under Sec.  
1041.3(e) and (f), respectively.\304\ Similarly, the Bureau recognized 
that some firms in the financial technology space are seeking to offer 
products designed to enable consumers to better cope with liquidity 
shortfalls, but the Bureau believed that those products, to a 
significant extent, fall within the exclusion for wage advance programs 
under Sec.  1041.3(d)(7) or the exclusion for no-cost advances under 
Sec.  1041.3(d)(8).\305\
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    \301\ 82 FR 54472, 54814.
    \302\ Id.
    \303\ Id. at 54815. Notably, on October 5, 2017, the Office of 
the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) rescinded guidance that had 
limited the provision of deposit advance products. 82 FR 47602 (Oct. 
12, 2017); see also News Release, Office of the Comptroller of the 
Currency, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rescinds Deposit 
Advance Product Guidance (NR-2017-118, Oct. 5, 2017), https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2017/nr-occ-2017-118.html. A May 23, 2018 OCC bulletin goes farther, and encourages 
banks to offer responsible short-term, small-dollar installment 
loans, which would likely compete with the loans covered by this 
proposal. Bulletin, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Core 
Lending Principles for Short-Term, Small-Dollar Installment Lending, 
(OCC Bulletin 2018-14, May 23, 2018), https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/2018/bulletin-2018-14.html. Additionally, 
on November 14, 2018, the FDIC issued an RFI seeking public comment 
on consumer demand for small-dollar credit products, the supply of 
small-dollar credit products currently offered by banks, and whether 
there are steps the FDIC could take to better enable banks to 
provide such products to consumers to meet demand. 83 FR 58566, 
58567 (Nov. 20, 2018); see also Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., Financial 
Institution Letter, Request for Information on Small-Dollar Lending 
(FIL-71-2018, Nov. 14, 2018), https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2018/fil18071.pdf. Given these changes, it is likely that 
these firms will more seriously consider offering these products 
under this proposal.
    \304\ 82 FR 54472, 54815.
    \305\ Id. The Bureau also believes many current fintech 
offerings fall outside of at least the mandatory underwriting 
requirements of the Rule, as they often focus on longer-term lending 
without balloon payments.
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    In addition to short-term lenders, lenders making longer-term 
balloon-payment loans (either vehicle title or unsecured) are also 
covered by the Rule's requirements concerning underwriting and RISes. 
It follows that lenders of each of these types will experience effects 
much like those of short-term lenders by the proposed revocation of the 
mandatory underwriting and RIS requirements.
    The proposal's revocation of mandatory underwriting and RIS 
requirements carries implications relating to recordkeeping 
requirements that apply to any lender making covered short-term or 
longer-term balloon-payment loans. The proposed revocation of the RIS 
provisions relates to the application process and operational 
requirements for entities who otherwise would have sought to become 
RISes.\306\
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    \306\ In this part, the Bureau's references to RISes generally 
include firms in any stage of becoming an RIS, whether they would 
have been preliminarily approved, provisionally registered, or would 
have completed the process at the time this proposal would, if 
adopted, go into effect.
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4. Description of the Baseline
    The major impact of the proposal on which the Bureau is seeking 
public comment would be to eliminate the Federal regulations requiring 
underwriting of covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans. No lenders are required to comply with the 2017 Final Rule until 
the compliance date (which currently is August 19, 2019) and until the 
court in litigation challenging the 2017 Final Rule lifts its stay of 
the compliance date. Accordingly, if the Bureau makes its proposal 
final before lenders have to comply with the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions in the 2017 Final Rule, then no lenders will have had to 
comply with them. As a practical matter, issuing regulatory 
requirements and revoking them before covered entities have had to 
actually comply with them means there is little effect on stakeholders 
from the combined effect of issuing and revoking the requirements, that 
is, the combined effect is returning to the status quo prior to the 
agency issuing a final rule.
    Nevertheless, the Bureau is considering the agency's two regulatory 
actions (that is issuing the 2017 Final Rule and proposing to rescind 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule prior to 
its compliance date) separately for section 1022(b)(2) analysis 
purposes. The issuance was evaluated in a section 1022(b)(2) analysis 
when the Bureau issued the 2017 Final Rule. The proposed revocation is 
evaluated in this section 1022(b)(2) analysis.
    In considering the potential benefits, costs, and impacts of the 
proposal to rescind the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions in the 2017 
Final Rule, to provide the most comprehensive assessment of the impact 
that the proposal would have, the Bureau takes as a baseline a scenario 
in which compliance with the 2017 Final Rule would become mandatory as 
of August 19, 2019 and compares the effect of the proposal to the 
market that would exist if, before reaching the compliance date, the 
Bureau elects to issue a final rule rescinding the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule.
    In other words, the Bureau takes the 2017 Final Rule as the 
baseline, and considers economic attributes of the relevant markets as 
they were (and continue to be) projected to exist under the 2017 Final 
Rule and the existing legal and regulatory structures (i.e., those that 
have been adopted or enacted, even if compliance is not yet required) 
applicable to providers.\307\ This approach assumes that any actions 
already undertaken and those that will be necessary to take in 
anticipation of the compliance date would also be reversed following 
revocation; it is the Bureau's belief that this is a reasonable

[[Page 4283]]

assumption but seeks comment on any such changes.\308\
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    \307\ The Bureau has discretion in each rulemaking to choose the 
relevant provisions to discuss and to choose the most appropriate 
baseline for that particular rulemaking in its analysis under 
section 1022(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act.
    \308\ The Bureau also notes that compliance readiness is 
ongoing, and lenders may or may not continue to incur costs in 
anticipation of needing to comply unless and until uncertainty 
around the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions is resolved.
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    As noted above, the Bureau has considered the same information as 
it considered in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis of the 2017 Final Rule 
and has chosen not to revisit the specific methodologies in that 
analysis. As such, the expected impacts articulated in those analyses 
are taken as features of the baseline in this analysis. The Bureau 
welcomes comments on this approach.
    The baseline specifically recognizes the wide variation in State-
level restrictions that currently exist. As described in greater detail 
in the 2017 Final Rule, there were at that time 35 (now 33) States that 
either have created a carve-out from their general usury cap for payday 
loans or have no usury caps on consumer loans.\309\ The remaining 15 
(now 17) States and the District of Columbia either ban payday loans or 
have fee or interest rate caps that payday lenders apparently find too 
low to sustain their business models. Except as described below, this 
proposal would have minimal impact on covered persons in these States, 
and State law would still be binding on the markets in these areas. 
Further variation exists across the States that allow payday loans, as 
States vary in their payday loan size limits and their restrictions 
related to rollovers (e.g., when they are permitted and whether they 
are subject to certain limitations, such as a cap on the number of 
rollovers or requirements that the borrower amortize--i.e., repay part 
of the original loan amount--on the rollover). Numerous cities and 
counties within these States have also passed local ordinances 
restricting the location, number, or product features of payday 
lenders.\310\ Restrictions on vehicle title lending similarly vary 
across and within States, in a manner that often (but not always) 
overlaps with payday lending restrictions. Overall, these restrictions 
result in fewer than half of States allowing single-payment vehicle 
title loans that are covered by the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
of the 2017 Final Rule.\311\
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    \309\ For a list of States, see Pew Charitable Trusts, State 
Payday Loan Regulation and Usage Rates (Jan. 14, 2014), http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/state-payday-loan-regulation-and-usage-rates. Other reports reach slightly 
different totals of payday authorizing States depending on their 
categorization methodology. See, e.g., Susanna Montezemolo, The 
State of Lending in America & Its Impact on U.S. Households: Payday 
Lending Abuses and Predatory Practices, at 32-33 (Ctr. for 
Responsible Lending, 2013), http://www.responsiblelending.org/sites/default/files/uploads/10-payday-loans.pdf; Consumer Fed'n of Am., 
Legal Status of Payday Loans by State, http://www.paydayloaninfo.org/state-information (last visited Feb. 4, 2019) 
(listing 32 States as having authorized or allowed payday lending). 
Since publication of these reports, South Dakota enacted a 36 
percent usury cap for consumer loans. Press Release, S.D. Dep't of 
Labor and Reg., Initiated Measure 21 Approved (Nov. 10, 2016), 
http://dlr.sd.gov/news/releases16/nr111016_initiated_measure_21.pdf.
    Legislation in New Mexico prohibiting short-term payday and 
vehicle title loans went into effect on January 1, 2018. Regulatory 
Alert, N.M. Reg. and Licensing Dep't, Small Loan Reforms, http://www.rld.state.nm.us/uploads/files/HB%20347%20Alert%20Final.pdf. 
Legislation passed in Ohio placing significant restrictions on 
short-term loans with an effective date of October 29, 2018. Ohio 
132nd General Assembly House Bill 123, Modify short-term, small, and 
mortgage loan laws, https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/
legislation-summary?id=GA132-hb-123. On February 1, 2019, a ballot 
initiative approved by voters in November 2018 will go into effect 
as law in Colorado reducing APRs on payday loans to 36 percent. See 
Colo. Legislative Council Staff, Initiative #126 Initial Fiscal 
Impact Statement, https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/filings/2017-2018/126FiscalImpact.pdf; see 
also Colo. Sec'y of State, Official Certified Results--State Offices 
& Questions, https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CO/91808/Web02-state.220747/#/c/C_2 (Proposition 111).
    \310\ For a sample list of local payday ordinances and 
resolutions, see Consumer Fed'n of Am., Controlling the Growth of 
Payday Lending Through Local Ordinances and Resolutions (Oct. 2012), 
www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/Resources.PDL.LocalOrdinanceManual11.13.12.pdf; see also, e.g., 
Portland Or., Code sec. 7.26.050; Eugene Or., Code sec. 3.556; Tex. 
Mun. League, City Regulation of Payday and Auto Title Lenders, 
http://www.tml.org/payday-updates.
    \311\ For a discussion of State vehicle title lending 
restrictions, see Consumer Fed'n of Am., Car Title Loan Regulation 
(Nov. 16, 2016), http://consumerfed.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/11-16-16-Car-Title-Loan-Regulation_Chart.pdf.
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    Another notable feature of the baseline is the restriction in the 
Military Lending Act (MLA) to address concerns about the extension of 
high-cost credit to servicemembers.\312\ The MLA, as implemented by the 
Department of Defense, requires, among other things, that the creditor 
may not impose a military annual percentage rate (MAPR) greater than 36 
percent in connection with an extension of consumer credit to a covered 
borrower. In 2007, the Department of Defense issued its initial 
regulation under the MLA, limiting the Act's application to closed-end 
loans with a term of 91 days or less in which the amount financed did 
not exceed $2,000, closed-end vehicle title loans with a term of 181 
days or less, and closed-end tax refund anticipation loans.\313\ This 
covered most short-term and longer-term payday and vehicle title loans. 
These regulations remain in effect and affect the terms of loans 
available to servicemembers.\314\
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    \312\ The MLA Act, part of the John Warner National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, was signed into law in 
October 2006. The interest rate cap took effect October 1, 2007. See 
10 U.S.C. 987.
    \313\ 72 FR 50580 (Aug. 31, 2007).
    \314\ As noted in the 2017 Final Rule, effective October 2015 
the Department of Defense expanded its definition of covered credit 
to include open-end credit and longer-term loans so that the MLA 
protections generally apply to all credit subject to the 
requirements of Regulation Z (12 CFR part 1026), which implements 
the Truth in Lending Act, other than certain products excluded by 
statute. 80 FR 43560 (July 22, 2015) (codified at 32 CFR part 232).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In considering the benefits, costs, and impacts of the proposal, 
the Bureau uses this baseline. More specifically, the Bureau notes that 
the 2017 Final Rule and this proposal would have limited impacts, with 
some limited exceptions, for consumers in States that currently do not 
allow such lending or that impose usury limits that have led payday and 
vehicle title lenders to refrain from doing business in those States, 
or for consumers who are not eligible for such lending.\315\ It is 
possible that consumers in these States access such loans online, by 
crossing State lines, or through other means. To the extent the 2017 
Final Rule would limit such lending, this proposal may impact these 
consumers. Similarly, in States which regulate payday lending in ways 
that prevent or limit the volume of loans extended, the 2017 Final Rule 
and the proposal would have fewer impacts on consumers and covered 
persons, as the State laws may already restrict lending. The overall 
effects of these more restrictive State laws were described in the 2017 
Final Rule and earlier in this proposal. In the remaining States--those 
that allow lending covered by the 2017 Final Rule without any binding 
limitations--the proposal would have its most substantial impacts 
relative to the 2017 Final Rule baseline.
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    \315\ The 2017 Final Rule would affect such consumers to the 
extent that they would otherwise cross State lines to obtain a 
covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment loan or borrow 
from an unlicensed lender. Evidence of consumers crossing State 
borders to obtain loans suggests these consumers overwhelmingly 
reside near a border with a State that allows such lending (see 
Onyumbe Enumbe Lukongo & Thomas W. Miller, Adverse Consequences of 
the Binding Constitutional Interest Rate Cap in the State of 
Arkansas (Mercatus Working Paper 2017), https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/lukongo_wp_mercatus_v1.pdf for one example). As such, 
the potential impacts on consumers residing in payday restricting 
States is likely concentrated in those consumers near a border who 
are willing and able to cross to obtain a payday loan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Notably, the quantitative simulations set forth in the 2017 Final 
Rule and summarized below reflect these variations in the baseline 
across States and across consumers with one exception. The data used 
for the 2017 Final Rule's analysis inherently capture the nature of 
shocks to, and mismatches in the timing between, consumers'

[[Page 4284]]

income and payments that drive much of the demand for covered short-
term and longer-term balloon-payment loans.\316\ To the extent that 
these shocks and mismatches have not changed since the time periods 
covered by the data (2011-2012), they are captured in the simulations. 
The analysis is also based on the statutory and regulatory environment 
extant when the data were compiled. The implication is that to the 
extent that the environment absent the 2017 Final Rule has changed in 
the intervening years, those changes are not reflected in the 
simulations. More specifically, the simulations will overstate the 
proposal's effects on lending volume in those areas where other 
regulatory changes since that time have limited lending. The 
simulations also will underestimate the proposal's effects on lending 
volume in any areas where regulatory changes since that time have 
relaxed restrictions on lending. In general, the Bureau believes that 
the States have become more restrictive over the past seven years, so 
that in this respect the simulations here are more likely to overstate 
than understate the effects of the proposal.\317\ That said, the 
simulation results are generally consistent with the additional 
estimates, using other data and time periods, provided to the Bureau in 
industry and alternative credit bureau comments on the 2016 Proposal.
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    \316\ The Bureau believes that obtaining additional data to 
update its estimates would not be a cost-effective enterprise. As 
noted in text, these results are largely consistent with estimates 
offered in industry comments on the 2016 Proposal, which provides 
additional validation that that the available evidence upon which 
this analysis relies is reliable for these purposes.
    \317\ Another possible change that could affect the baseline is 
the June 2018 Community Financial Services of America (a trade 
association representing payday and small-dollar lenders) revision 
of its best practices to add that its members should, before 
extending credit, ``undertake a reasonable, good-faith effort to 
determine a customer's creditworthiness and ability to repay the 
loan.'' This practice applies to other small-dollar loans the member 
makes. See Cmty. Fin. Serv. of Am., Best Practices for the Small-
Dollar Loan Industry, https://www.cfsaa.com/files/files/CFSA-BestPractices.pdf (last visited Feb. 4, 2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Major Impacts of the Proposal
    The primary impact of this proposed rule relative to the baseline 
in which compliance with the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule becomes mandatory would be a substantial increase in 
the volume of short-term payday and vehicle title loans (measured in 
both number and total dollar value), and a corresponding increase in 
the revenues lenders realize from these loans. The simulations set 
forth in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis accompanying the 2017 Final 
Rule based on the Bureau's data indicate that relative to the chosen 
baseline payday loan volumes would increase by 104 percent to 108 
percent, with an increase in revenue for payday lenders between 204 
percent and 213 percent.\318\ Simulations of the impact on short-term 
vehicle title lending predict an increase in loan volumes of 809 
percent to 1,329 percent relative to the chosen baseline, with an 
approximately equivalent increase in revenues. The specific details, 
assumptions, and structure of these simulations are described in the 
2017 Final Rule.\319\
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    \318\ These calculations are based on the same simulations the 
Bureau described in the 2017 Final Rule. The Bureau ran a number of 
simulations based on different market structures that may occur as a 
result of the Rule. The estimates cited here come from the 
specifications where lenders would make loans under both the 
mandatory underwriting and principal step-down approaches. See the 
2017 Final Rule for descriptions of all the simulations conducted by 
the Bureau, and their results. 82 FR 54472, 54824.
    \319\ The numbers cited here are simply the reverse of the 
numbers cited in the 2017 Final Rule as being the most likely. 
There, the Bureau estimated a decrease in loan volumes of 51 to 52 
percent and a decrease in revenues of 67 percent to 68 percent for 
payday loans, and a decrease in both loan volumes and revenues of 89 
to 93 percent for vehicle title loans. 82 FR 54472, 54827, 54834. 
Taking the decreased values as the baseline and reintroducing the 
reduced loan volumes and revenues yields the numbers cited here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau expects, again relative to the chosen baseline, that 
these increases would result in an increase in the number of 
storefronts relative to the market projected to exist under the 2017 
Final Rule. As discussed in the section 1022(b)(2) analysis for the 
2017 Final Rule, a decrease in payday storefronts was observed in 
States that experienced loan volume declines of the magnitude projected 
to occur for payday loans under the 2017 Final Rule after those States 
adopted restrictive regulations (e.g., Washington),\320\ making a 
corresponding relative increase likely if the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions are rescinded. This might in turn improve physical access to 
credit for consumers, especially for consumers in rural areas. 
Additionally, the increase in storefronts would be likely to impact 
small lenders and lenders in rural areas more than larger lenders and 
those in areas of greater population density. However, the practical 
improvements in consumer physical access to payday loans are not likely 
to be as substantial as the increase in storefronts may imply. Again as 
explained in the 2017 Final Rule, in States with substantial regulatory 
changes that led to substantial decreases in payday storefronts, over 
90 percent of borrowers had to travel an additional five miles or less. 
Additionally, the Bureau anticipated in the 2017 Final Rule that online 
options would be available to the vast majority of current payday 
borrowers, including those in rural areas.\321\ Assuming that this is 
correct, the improved physical access to payday storefronts would 
likely have the largest impact on a small set of rural consumers who 
would have needed to travel substantially longer to reach a storefront, 
and who lack access to online payday loans (or strongly prefer loans 
initiated at a storefront to those initiated online).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \320\ Supplemental Findings, chapter 3 part B.
    \321\ This geographic impact on borrowers was discussed 
specifically in the 2017 Final Rule's section on Reduced Geographic 
Availability of Covered Short-Term Loans in part VII.F.2.b.v which 
relies heavily on chapter 3 of the Bureau's Supplemental Findings. 
82 FR 54472, 54842.
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    Increased revenues (more precisely, increased profits) relative to 
the chosen baseline are expected to lead many current firms that would 
have exited the market under the Rule to remain in the market should 
this proposal take effect.\322\ Additionally, many of the restrictions 
imposed by the 2017 Final Rule could have been voluntarily adopted by 
lenders absent the Rule but the Bureau has no evidence that they were. 
That they were not adopted implies the Rule's impacts are welfare-
decreasing for lenders. Reversing these restrictions should therefore 
be welfare enhancing for lenders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \322\ Should lenders have to comply with the Rule prior to the 
finalization of this proposal, it is possible that firms that exited 
the market because they had to comply would not return. However, the 
Bureau believes the demand for loans would remain such that the 
volume of loans and revenue estimates detailed in this analysis 
would still result. In this scenario, it is likely that there will 
be fewer lenders with increased (average) loan volumes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As for the effects on consumers, the Bureau noted in the 2017 Final 
Rule that the evidence on the impacts of the availability of payday 
loans on consumer welfare varies. The Bureau found that, in general, 
the evidence to date suggests that access to payday loans appears to 
benefit consumers in circumstances where they use these loans for short 
periods of time and/or to address an unforeseen and discrete need, such 
as when they experience a transitory and unexpected shock to their 
incomes or expenses.\323\ The Bureau also found that the evidence to 
date suggests that, in more general circumstances, access to, and 
intensive use of, these loans appears to make consumers worse off. The 
Bureau summarized the evidence in the 2017 Final Rule, noting that 
``access to payday loans may well be beneficial for those borrowers 
with discrete, short-term needs, but only if they are able to

[[Page 4285]]

successfully avoid long sequences of loans.'' \324\
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    \323\ See, e.g., 82 FR 54472, 54818, and 54842-46.
    \324\ Id. at 54846.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As the 2017 Final Rule, which includes the conditional exemption 
for loans with a step-down in principal, allows for continued access to 
the credit that appears most beneficial--that which assists consumers 
with discrete, short-term needs--the Bureau believed that much of the 
welfare benefit estimated in the literature would be preserved under 
the Rule, despite the substantial reduction in availability of 
reborrowing.\325\ Additionally, the 2017 Final Rule limited the 
potential costs that could be realized by borrowers who would have 
experienced long durations of indebtedness where the, albeit more 
limited, literature, and the Bureau's own analysis and study set forth 
in the 2017 Final Rule suggested that prolonged reborrowing has, on 
average, negative effects.\326\ Given this, the Bureau concluded that 
the overall impacts of the decreased loan volumes resulting from the 
2017 Final Rule's Mandatory Underwriting Provisions on consumers would 
be positive,\327\ it follows that the inverse effects would ensue, 
relative to the chosen baseline, from this proposal to rescind the 2017 
Final Rule. It bears emphasis, however, that the 2017 Final Rule's 
conclusion as to these effects was dependent upon the evidence that 
consumers who experienced long durations of indebtedness generally did 
not anticipate those outcomes and, as discussed above, the agency now 
believes that this evidence is not sufficiently robust and 
representative to support the findings necessary to determine that the 
identified practice is unfair and abusive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \325\ Id. at 54818.
    \326\ Id. at 54839, 54842.
    \327\ Id. at 54835, 54842.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In drafting this proposal, the Bureau has also considered new and 
additional evidence that was not available at the time of the 2017 
Final Rule. There are few such studies that deal with the pecuniary 
effects of payday loans on consumers, and none that specifically deal 
with the effects of the loans that would be eliminated by the 2017 
Final Rule (e.g., those beyond the fourth loan in a sequence or the 
seventh non-underwritten loan in a year). As a result, the new studies 
do not affect the Bureau's analysis as set forth above.
    Relative to the considerations above, the remaining benefits and 
costs of this proposal--again relative to the baseline in which 
compliance with the 2017 Final Rule will become mandatory--are much 
smaller in their magnitudes and economic importance. Most of these 
impacts manifest as reductions in administrative, compliance, or time 
costs that compliance with the 2017 Final Rule will entail; or as 
potential costs from revoking aspects of the 2017 Final Rule that could 
have decreased fraud or increased transparency. The Bureau expects most 
of these impacts to be fairly small on a per loan/consumer/lender 
basis. These impacts include, among other things, those applicable to 
the RISes under the Rule; those associated with reduced furnishing 
requirements on lenders and consumers (e.g., avoiding the costs to 
establish connection with RISes, forgone benefits from reduced fraud); 
those associated with making an ability-to-repay determination for 
loans that require one (e.g., avoiding the cost to obtain all necessary 
consumer reports, forgoing the benefit of decreased defaults); those 
associated with avoiding the Rule's record retention obligations that 
are specific to the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions; those associated 
with eliminating the need for disclosures regarding principal step-down 
loans; and the additional impacts associated with increased loan 
volumes (e.g., changes in defaults or account closures, non-pecuniary 
changes to consumer welfare). Each of these benefits and costs, broken 
down by type of market participant, is discussed in detail below.
    The Bureau has also conducted a Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) 
analysis to estimate the benefits associated with the proposal's 
reduction in the hour and dollar costs of the information collection 
requirements to the entities subject to the 2017 Final Rule. The PRA 
separates these estimates into one-time and annual ongoing categories 
for total burden reduction, labor burden hour reduction, and labor 
burden dollar reduction. As discussed in part X below, a revised 
Supporting Statement detailing the changes to the information 
collections for the Rule and their effects on the Rule's overall burden 
will be made available for public comment on the electronic docket 
accompanying this proposed rule.
    The discussion of impacts that follows is organized into three main 
categories mentioned above: (1) The revocation of the 2017 Final Rule's 
requirement to reasonably determine borrowers' ability to repay covered 
short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans; (2) the revocation of 
the recordkeeping requirements associated with (1); and (3) the 
revocation of the 2017 Final Rule's requirements concerning furnishing 
provisions. Within each of these main categories, the discussion is 
organized to facilitate a clear and complete consideration of the 
benefits, costs, and impacts of the major provisions of this proposed 
rule. Impacts on depository institutions with $10 billion or less in 
total assets and on rural consumers are discussed separately below.

B. Potential Benefits and Costs of the Proposal to Consumers and 
Covered Persons--Provisions Relating Specifically to Ability-To-Repay 
Determinations for Covered Short-Term and Longer-Term Balloon-Payment 
Loans

    This section discusses the impacts of revoking the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule relative to the chosen 
baseline in which compliance with the Rule was mandatory. Those 
provisions specifically relate to covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans, and the analyses of their benefits and costs 
contained in the 2017 Final Rule were sensitive to the potential 
shifting to products not covered by the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the Rule (i.e., the Bureau did not attempt to anticipate 
how lenders might adjust their offerings in light of the Rule). In the 
2017 Final Rule, the Bureau stated that the potential evolution of 
lender offerings that may arise in response to the Rule was beyond the 
scope of the section 1022(b)(2) analysis contained therein; \328\ 
similarly the Bureau does not attempt to assess here any strategic de-
evolution of the market that will result if compliance with the 2017 
Final Rule becomes mandatory.\329\
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    \328\ Id. at 54472, 54818, 54835.
    \329\ For example, there appears to be a shift in the market 
away from payday lending toward short-term installment lending. 
Payday loan revenue from both storefront and online channels 
declined from 2015 to 2016 by 11.9 percent and 9.9 percent, 
respectively. By contrast, short-term installment loan revenue was 
expected to increase 7.5 percent in 2017. Ctr. for Fin. Serv. 
Innovation, 2017 Financially Underserved Market Size Study, at 12, 
13, 18, 44, and 45 (Dec. 2017), https://s3.amazonaws.com/cfsi-innovation-files/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/07221553/2017-Market-Size-Report_FINAL_4-1.pdf. The Bureau does not attempt to anticipate 
if, or how much of, a move back to payday lending may result from 
this proposal, as it is beyond the scope of the available evidence, 
and the Bureau is unaware of any examples in the market that could 
provide such data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Revoking the requirements for originations, and the associated 
restrictions on reborrowing, is likely to have a substantial impact on 
the markets for these products relative to the markets that exist under 
the 2017 Final Rule. In order to present a clear analysis of the 
benefits and costs of the proposal, this section first describes the 
benefits and costs of the proposal to covered persons relative to the 
baseline

[[Page 4286]]

where compliance with the 2017 Final Rule becomes mandatory and then 
discusses the implications of the proposal for the markets for these 
products. The benefits and costs to consumers are then described.
1. Benefits and Costs to Covered Persons
    This proposal would rescind a number of operational requirements on 
lenders making covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans 
and remove restrictions on the number of these loans that can be made. 
As this proposal would rescind the requirements associated with the 
mandatory underwriting approach, it also obviates the need for the 
principal step-down approach set out in Sec.  1041.6 of the 2017 Final 
Rule as an alternative to the mandatory underwriting approach in Sec.  
1041.5 for making covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans.\330\ As the proposal would remove restrictions on the 
operational requirements for lenders, allowing them to avoid making an 
ability-to-repay determination, this section discusses the overall 
benefits and costs to lenders associated with not having to comply with 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions in the 2017 Final Rule rather 
than having to do so.
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    \330\ The principal step-down approach is an alternative to the 
mandatory underwriting approach detailed in 12 CFR 1041.6. Under 
this approach, a lender would not need to determine ability-to-repay 
for an initial loan of up to $500. Subsequent loans issued within 30 
days of an initial loan would need to amortize by one-third of the 
principal of the previous loan, and no more than three loans in a 
sequence, or six loans in a rolling 12-month period would be 
permitted. After reaching the limit imposed by the principal step-
down approach, borrowers would need to obtain all further loans via 
the mandatory underwriting approach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

a. Revocation of the Operational Requirements Associated With Mandatory 
Underwriting
    Under the proposal, lenders would not be required to make an 
ability-to-repay determination prior to originating a loan, nor would 
they be required to ensure adherence to limits on loans made via the 
principal step-down approach, nor would they need to report loans to 
RISes to ensure compliance with those limits.
    More specifically, under the proposal lenders would not need to 
consult their own records and the records of their affiliates to 
determine whether the borrower had taken out any prior covered short-
term or longer-term balloon-payment loans that were still outstanding 
or were repaid within the prior 30 days. Lenders would not need to 
maintain the ability-to-repay-related records mandated by the 2017 
Final Rule. Lenders would not need to obtain a consumer report from an 
RIS (if available) in order to obtain information about the consumer's 
borrowing history across lenders, and would no longer be required to 
furnish information regarding covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans they originate to all RISes. Lenders would also 
be freed from the obligation imposed by the 2017 Final Rule to obtain 
and verify information about the amount of an applicant's income 
(unless not reasonably available) and major financial obligations.
    The proposed revocation of each of these operational requirements 
entails a reduction in costs that were to be incurred under the 2017 
Final Rule for loan applications (not just for loans that are 
originated). Additionally, if and depending on when the proposal is 
adopted, lenders may not be required to develop or adhere to procedures 
to comply with each of these requirements and train their staff in 
those procedures. The Bureau believes that many lenders use automated 
systems when originating loans, and will modify those systems, or 
purchase upgrades to those systems, to address many of the operational 
requirements associated with the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule. Reversing the obligation to incur operational 
costs should be of minimal benefit to lenders. Reversing the obligation 
in fact may actually result in small costs for any lenders who changed 
their processes and procedures in anticipation of having to comply with 
the Rule; however, lenders are under no obligation to reverse these 
modifications, and so any lender that would incur costs to do so could 
simply not reverse the modifications to avoid incurring them.
    Each of the costs this proposal would obviate is considered in 
detail in the 2017 Final Rule at part VII.F.
    Total Impacts of the Operational Requirements Associated with 
Mandatory Underwriting. In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau estimated 
that obtaining a statement from the consumer, taking reasonable steps 
to verify income, obtaining a national consumer report and a report 
from an RIS, projecting the consumer's residual income or debt-to-
income ratio, estimating the consumer's basic living expenses, and 
arriving at a reasonable ability-to-repay determination will take 
essentially no additional time for a fully automated electronic system 
and between 15 and 45 minutes for a fully manual system. The Bureau 
further noted total costs would depend on the existing utilization 
rates of, and wages paid to, staff that will spend time carrying out 
this work. To the extent that lenders needed to increase staff and/or 
hours to comply with the 2017 Final Rule's operational requirements 
with respect to the mandatory underwriting approach, under the proposal 
they would experience decreased costs from hiring, training, wages, and 
benefits relative to what will occur under the 2017 Final Rule.
    Additional savings under this proposal would come from what would 
have been an obligation to obtain a national consumer report costing 
between $0.55 and $2.00, and/or a report from an RIS costing $0.50. 
Lenders using third-party services to gather verification information 
about income would realize an additional small benefit under the 
proposal from avoiding the fees associated with using these services.
    Developing Procedures, Upgrading Systems, and Training Staff. Under 
the 2017 Final Rule, lenders must develop policies and procedures to 
comply with the requirements of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions 
and train their staff in those procedures. Many of these requirements 
are not qualitatively different from the practices in which most 
lenders would engage absent the 2017 Final Rule--such as gathering 
information and documents from borrowers and ordering various types of 
consumer reports--though the Rule's requirements may demand more, and 
more costly, efforts to obtain such information and documents.
    Developing procedures to make a reasonable determination that a 
borrower has the ability to repay a loan without reborrowing while 
paying for major financial obligations and basic living expenses will 
likely be costly and challenging for many lenders. The Bureau expected 
that vendors, law firms, and trade associations will likely offer both 
products and guidance to lenders, potentially mitigating the cost of 
these procedures for lenders, because such service providers can 
realize economies of scale.\331\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \331\ As noted above, the Bureau believes that many lenders use 
automated systems when originating loans, and will incorporate many 
of the operational requirements of the mandatory underwriting 
approach into those systems. While this may mitigate some of the 
costs discussed here, the operational costs will remain substantial.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau estimated that lender staff engaging in making loans 
would require approximately 5 hours per employee of initial training in 
carrying out the tasks described in the 2017 Final Rule and 2.5 hours 
per employee per year of periodic ongoing training; lenders would 
benefit

[[Page 4287]]

if they did not have to incur these time costs if the Bureau adopts 
this proposal.
b. Operational Requirements--Principal Step-Down Approach
    All of the costs described in the 2017 Final Rule associated with 
the principal step-down approach would be ultimately unnecessary under 
the proposal. This is because the principal step-down approach is an 
alternative to using the mandatory underwriting approach to issue new 
loans. Under this proposal, lenders would generally be expected to 
continue their pre-2017 Final Rule practices, and need not engage in 
any of the principal step-down procedures. As such, all benefits and 
costs associated with that approach would be eliminated under this 
proposal. This includes avoiding the system upgrades and time costs of 
providing the required disclosures.
c. Effect on Loan Volumes and Revenue From Eliminating Underwriting 
Requirements and Restrictions on Certain Reborrowing
    In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau described the estimated effects 
of the underwriting requirements under the mandatory underwriting 
approach and the restrictions on certain reborrowing under both the 
mandatory underwriting approach and principal step-down approach. Those 
estimates were based on simulations, and the estimated effects on 
lender revenue were far more substantial than the increase in 
compliance costs from implementing the requirements.
    In order to simulate the effects of the 2017 Final Rule, it was 
necessary to impose an analytic structure and make certain assumptions 
about the impacts of the Rule, and apply them to the data. The Bureau 
conducted three simulations of the potential impacts of the 2017 Final 
Rule on payday loan volumes--one each under the assumptions that loans 
are only made using the mandatory underwriting approach, that loans are 
made only under the principal step-down approach, and what the Bureau 
believed to be the most realistic assumption, that loans are made under 
both approaches--and a single vehicle title simulation.\332\ The 
results of the simulations are reviewed here; the structure, 
assumptions, and data used by the Bureau were described in detail in 
the 2017 Final Rule.\333\ None of the underlying data, assumptions, or 
structures have changed in the Bureau's analysis of the impacts of this 
proposal. As such, the description in the 2017 Final Rule also 
describes the simulations used here. Moreover, the estimated effects on 
loan volumes of rescinding the underwriting requirements are simply the 
effects as determined in the 2017 Final Rule of implementing these 
requirements. To assist the agency in doing a Section 1022 analysis for 
any proposed final rule revoking the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau seeks 
comment on the structure, assumptions, and data the agency used in 
these simulations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \332\ As vehicle title loans are not eligible for the principal 
step-down approach, simulating the effects on this market was more 
straightforward than for payday. As alternative assumptions about 
the prevalence of loans issued via the principal step-down vs. 
mandatory underwriting approaches were not appropriate, only a 
single structure for the vehicle title simulations was assumed.
    \333\ 82 FR 54472, 54824.
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    The Bureau's simulations suggest that storefront payday loan 
volumes would increase between 104 percent and 108 percent under this 
proposal relative to the 2017 Final Rule baseline. The Bureau estimates 
that revenues of storefront payday lenders would be between 204 percent 
and 213 percent higher if they do not have to comply with the 
requirements in the 2017 Final Rule.\334\ While these simulated results 
are based on data from storefront payday lenders, the Bureau explained 
in the 2017 Final Rule that the impacts are likely to be similar for 
online payday lenders;\335\ the Bureau believes that to be the likely 
case with the proposal as well. Using the most recent estimated 
revenues for payday lenders by Center for Financial Services 
Innovation's (CFSI), lenders not having to comply with the requirements 
in the 2017 Final Rule would translate to an increase in their annual 
revenues of approximately $3.4 billion to $3.6 billion.\336\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \334\ The loan volume and revenue estimates differ for payday 
loans as the 2017 Final Rule imposed limits on the sizes of loans 
issued under the principal step-down approach, as well as limits on 
the sizes of reborrowed loans. In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau 
estimated that approximately 40 percent of the reduction in revenues 
resulted from limits on loan sizes, while the remaining 60 percent 
was the result of decreased loan volumes. Id. at 54827. The 
increases in revenues presented here are estimated to stem from the 
same sources, in the same proportions (i.e., approximately 40 
percent from larger loans, and approximately 60 percent from 
additional loans).
    \335\ Id. at 54833.
    \336\ Based on pre-2017 Final Rule estimated revenues for payday 
lenders of approximately $5.3 billion, reported in Eric Wilson & Eva 
Wolkowitz, 2017 Financially Underserved Market Size Study, at 44 
(Ctr. for Fin. Serv. Innovation, Dec. 2017), https://s3.amazonaws.com/cfsi-innovation-files-2018/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/27001546/2017-Market-Size-Report_FINAL_4.pdf, with medium 
confidence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For vehicle title lending, the simulated impacts are larger. The 
Bureau's simulations suggest that relative to the 2017 Final Rule 
baseline vehicle title loan volumes would increase under the proposal 
by between 809 percent and 1,329 percent, with a corresponding increase 
in revenues for vehicle title lenders.\337\ Using CFSI's most recent 
estimated revenues for vehicle title lenders, this would mean the 
proposed elimination of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
2017 Final Rule would translate into an increase in annual revenues for 
these lenders of approximately $3.9 billion to $4.1 billion.\338\ It is 
also possible the impact on vehicle title lending would be even larger 
than the simulations suggest. If the industry were not able to survive 
as a result of complying with the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule, the proposal could effectively resurrect the 
vehicle title lending industry relative to the baseline. In this case, 
the increased revenues from the proposal would be equal to the entire 
vehicle title lending industry's estimated annual revenue of 
approximately $4.4 billion.\339\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \337\ As vehicle title loans are ineligible for the principal 
step-down approach under the 2017 Final Rule, there was no binding 
limit on the size of these loans. This resulted in a larger decrease 
in volumes for vehicle title loans relative to payday (as loans 
could only be issued under the mandatory underwriting approach), but 
ensured the corresponding decrease in revenues was more similar to 
the decrease in loan volumes (since all issued loans were 
unrestricted in their amounts relative to the Rule's baseline). The 
increases cited here follow a similar pattern, for similar reasons.
    \338\ Based on pre-2017 Final Rule estimated revenues for 
vehicle title lenders of approximately $4.4 billion, reported in 
Eric Wilson & Eva Wolkowitz, 2017 Financially Underserved Market 
Size Study, at 46 (Ctr. for Fin. Serv. Innovation, Dec. 2017), 
https://s3.amazonaws.com/cfsi-innovation-files-2018/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/27001546/2017-Market-Size-Report_FINAL_4.pdf, with 
medium confidence.
    \339\ Id. In a similar vein, if the 2017 Final Rule had not 
contained the principal step-down exemption it too could have 
affected the survival of the payday loan industry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A notable impact of this increase in loan volumes and revenues is 
that many storefronts would likely exist under the proposal that would 
not if they had to comply with the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of 
the 2017 Final Rule. A pattern of contractions in storefronts has 
played out in States that have imposed laws or regulations that 
resulted in similar reductions in volume as those projected under the 
2017 Final Rule. To the extent that lenders cannot replace reductions 
in revenue by adapting their products and practices, it follows that 
such a contraction--or, in the case of vehicle title, an elimination--
would be a likely (perhaps inevitable) response to complying with the 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule. It likewise

[[Page 4288]]

follows that, under the proposal, there would be a corresponding 
increase in the number of storefronts relative to the number of them 
that would exist if they had to comply with the requirements of the 
2017 Final Rule.
    The Bureau notes that in recent years there has been a gradual 
shift in the market towards longer-term loans where permitted by State 
law. The Bureau does not have sufficient data to assess whether that 
trend has accelerated since the issuance of the 2017 Final Rule in 
anticipation of the compliance date.\340\ This was considered in the 
2017 Final Rule as well.\341\ To the extent these lenders have already 
made these adaptations, and would not shift their business practices 
back if this proposal were adopted, the loan volume and revenue 
estimates above may be somewhat overstated.
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    \340\ Since the issuance of the 2017 Final Rule, Florida and 
Alabama have amended their laws to open the door to longer-term 
loans at interest rates above the standard usury limit. See Ala. 
Code sec. 5-18A; Fla. Stat. Ann. sec. 560.404. On the other hand, a 
voter referendum in Colorado has resulted in a law, effective 
February 1, 2019, that capped interest rates on certain longer-term 
loans. See Colo. Legislative Council Staff, Initiative #126 Initial 
Fiscal Impact Statement, https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/filings/2017-2018/126FiscalImpact.pdf; see 
also Colo. Sec'y of State, Official Certified Result--State Offices 
& Questions, https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CO/91808/Web02-state.220747/#/c/C_2 (Proposition 111).
    \341\ 82 FR 54472, 54835.
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2. Benefits and Costs to Consumers
a. Benefits to Consumers and Access to Credit
    The operational requirements of the Mandatory Underwriting 
Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule would make the process of obtaining a 
loan more time consuming and complex for some borrowers (e.g., online 
borrowers and vehicle title borrowers who may not currently be required 
to provide any documentation of income). The restrictions on lending in 
the 2017 Final Rule will reduce the availability of storefront payday 
loans, online payday loans, single-payment vehicle title loans, longer-
term balloon-payment loans, and other loans covered by the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the Rule. Borrowers will likely experience 
reduced access to new loans--i.e., loans that are not part of an 
existing loan sequence--from these restrictions. Some borrowers also 
will be prevented from rolling loans over or reborrowing shortly after 
repaying a prior loan under the 2017 Final Rule. Some borrowers might 
still be able to borrow, but for smaller amounts or with different loan 
structures, and might find this less preferable to them than the terms 
they would have received absent the 2017 Final Rule. The proposal would 
reverse each of these effects that would otherwise result from the 2017 
Final Rule, decreasing the time and effort consumers would need to 
expend to obtain a covered short-term or longer-term balloon-payment 
loan, and improving their access to credit, which may carry pecuniary 
and non-pecuniary benefits.
    The Bureau's simulations (discussed above) suggest that the 2017 
Final Rule's requirements (again including the principal step-down 
exemption) will prevent between 5.9 and 6.2 percent of payday borrowers 
from initiating a sequence of loans that they would have initiated 
absent the Rule.\342\ That is, since most consumers take out six or 
fewer loans each year, and are not engaged in long sequences of 
borrowing, the Rule as a whole will not limit their borrowing. However, 
if the proposal is adopted, consumers would be able to extend their 
sequences beyond three loans and would not be required to repay one-
third of the loan each time they reborrow. As a result, many loans 
would be taken out beyond the sequence limitations imposed by the 2017 
Final Rule (e.g., fourth and subsequent loans within 30 days of the 
prior loan); these loans account for the vast majority of the 
additional volume in the Bureau's simulations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \342\ The section-by-section analysis accompanying the 2017 
Final Rule identified three categories of borrowers based upon their 
ex post behavior: Repayers (those who take out a single loan and 
repay it without the need to reborrow within 30 days); defaulters 
(those who default after taking out a single loan or at the end of a 
sequence of loans); and reborrowers (those who take out a sequence 
of loans which ends with repayment). The simulation did not attempt 
to estimate which type(s) of consumers would be prevented from 
initiating a sequence of loans under the 2017 Final Rule or which 
type(s) of consumer would be able to obtain loans under the 
principal step-down exemption.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Revocation of Operational Requirements. The Bureau is proposing to 
rescind the operational requirements associated with underwriting loans 
originated via the mandatory underwriting approach, and the various 
recordkeeping procedures associated with the principal step-down 
approach. As such, under the proposal, the process of obtaining funds 
should be faster for consumers compared to the baseline of the 2017 
Final Rule. Consumers obtaining loans that would have been subject to 
the Rule's mandatory underwriting requirements would see the most 
significant gains under the proposal. Estimates of the time required to 
manually process an application suggest that eliminating the mandatory 
underwriting requirements would subtract 15 to 45 minutes from the 
borrowing process, a consideration many of these consumers may find 
important given than convenience is an important product feature on 
which payday lenders compete for customers.\343\ Additionally, 
borrowers would not need to obtain and provide to the lender certain 
documentation mandated under the mandatory underwriting requirements; 
the proposal would minimize the complexity of the process, and obviate 
the need for repeat trips to the lender if the borrower did not bring 
all the required documents initially, thereby making the payday loan 
process more convenient for consumers seeking loans that would 
otherwise been subject to the mandatory underwriting requirements. The 
proposal would thus decrease both the complexity and length of the 
process used for consumers who are seeking to obtain a covered short-
term or longer-term balloon-payment loan that otherwise would have been 
subject to the mandatory underwriting requirements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \343\ The Bureau noted in the 2017 Final Rule that it 
anticipated that most lenders would use automation to make the 
ability-to-repay determination, which would take substantially less 
time to process. See 82 FR 54472, 54631, 54632 n.767. For those 
borrowers seeking loans from these lenders, the time savings under 
the proposal would be substantially smaller.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Improved Access to Initial Loans. As this proposal would remove the 
restrictions on obtaining a loan stemming from the 2017 Final Rule's 
Mandatory Underwriting Provisions' requirements consumers would have 
increased access to loans. Initial covered short-term loans--i.e., 
those taken out by borrowers who have not recently had a covered short-
term loan--are presumably taken out because of a need for credit that 
is not the result of prior borrowing of covered short-term loans. Under 
the 2017 Final Rule, borrowers might be unable to take out new loans 
(those originated more than 30 days after their last loan) for at least 
two reasons: They may only have access to loans made under the 
mandatory underwriting requirements and be unable to demonstrate an 
ability to repay the loan under the Rule, or they may be unable to 
satisfy any additional underwriting requirements adopted by lenders in 
response to, though not required by, the Rule.
    If lenders had to comply with the 2017 Final Rule, payday borrowers 
would not be likely to face the prescribed mandatory underwriting 
requirement unless and until they have exhausted the limits on loans 
available to them under the principal step-down

[[Page 4289]]

approach, or unless the borrower is seeking a loan in excess of $500 or 
secured by a vehicle title (as the costs and restrictions associated 
with the principal step-down approach are generally lower compared to 
the mandatory underwriting approach, so loans under the principal step-
down approach are likely to be used prior to loans under the mandatory 
underwriting approach, all else being equal). However, to obtain loans 
under the Rule's principal step-down approach, lenders might elect to 
require borrowers to satisfy more exacting underwriting requirements 
than would be applied by lenders if the proposal is adopted. This is 
because under the proposal lenders would be able to obtain more revenue 
from loans that are reborrowed in excess of the limits that would be 
imposed by the principal step-down approach, and would thus be willing 
to continue issuing loans to somewhat riskier borrowers. Moreover, 
after exhausting the limits on principal step-down approach loans in 
the Rule, borrowers would be required to satisfy the mandatory 
underwriting requirement to obtain a new loan; under the proposal, 
however, those more stringent requirements would no longer apply.
    Based on the simulations contained in the 2017 Final Rule, the 
Bureau estimates that under the proposal about five percent more 
initial payday loans (i.e., those that are not part of an existing 
sequence) would occur due to the revocation of the annual loan limits, 
and roughly six percent more borrowers would be able to initiate a new 
sequence of loans that they could not start under the 2017 Final Rule. 
That is, under the proposal five percent more payday loans that likely 
reflect a new need for credit would be allowed (based on the proposed 
removal of the annual limits on borrowing) and six percent of payday 
borrowers would have access to new sequences of loans as compared to 
the chosen baseline. Vehicle title borrowers are likely to realize 
greater benefits from increased access to loans relative to payday 
borrowers.
    Consumers who would be able to obtain a new loan because of the 
proposal would not be faced with the effects of the 2017 Final Rule, 
including not being forced to forgo certain purchases, incur high costs 
from delayed payment of existing obligations, or incur high costs and 
other negative impacts by simply defaulting on bills; nor would they 
face the need to borrow from sources that are more expensive or 
otherwise less desirable. These borrowers may avoid overdrafting their 
checking accounts, which may be more expensive than taking out a payday 
or single-payment vehicle title loan. Similarly, they may avoid 
``borrowing'' by paying a bill late, which can lead to late fees (which 
may or may not be more expensive than a payday or vehicle title loan) 
or other negative consequences like the loss of utility service.
    Survey evidence provides some information about what borrowers are 
likely to do if they do not have access to these loans. Using the data 
from the CPS Unbanked/Underbanked supplement, researchers found that 
the share of households using pawn loans increased in States that 
banned payday loans, to a level that suggested a large share of 
households that would otherwise have taken out payday loans took out 
pawn loans instead.\344\ A 2012 survey of payday loan borrowers found 
that a majority indicated that if payday loans were unavailable they 
would reduce expenses, delay bill payment, borrow from family or 
friends, and/or sell or pawn personal items.\345\ Under the proposal, 
these consumers would not lose access to payday loans where it is their 
preferred method of credit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \344\ Neil Bhutta et al., Consumer Borrowing after Payday Loan 
Bans, 59 J. of L. and Econ. 225 (2016).
    \345\ Pew Charitable Trusts, Payday Lending in America: Who 
Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why, at 16 (Report 1, 2012), https:/
/www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/
pewpaydaylendingreportpdf.pdf (reporting $375 as the average).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Elimination of Limits on Loan Size. The 2017 Final Rule placed 
limits on the size of loans lenders may issue via the principal step-
down approach, which, as discussed above, is one of the requirements 
for the conditional exemption from the mandatory underwriting approach 
for covered short-term loans. These limits are $500 for the initial 
loan, with each subsequent loan in a sequence decreasing by at least 
one-third the amount of the original loan. For example, a $450 initial 
loan would mean borrowers are restricted to no more than $300 for a 
second loan, and no more than $150 for a third loan. By eliminating 
these restrictions, the proposal would allow borrowers (specifically, 
borrowers who cannot satisfy the mandatory underwriting requirements 
for covered short-term loans and thus who can only borrow under the 
principal step-down approach) to take out larger initial loans (where 
allowed by State law), and reborrow these loans in their full amount. 
In the simulation that the 2017 Final Rule stated best approximates the 
market as it would exist under the Rule,\346\ around 40 percent of the 
increase in payday loan revenues described in part VIII.B.1.c above 
would be the result of eliminating the $500 cap on initial loans and 
step-down requirements on loans issued via the principal step-down 
approach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \346\ In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau describes the results 
from simulations under three sets of assumptions. This proposal 
presents results from the simulation approach preferred by the 
Bureau in the 2017 Final Rule as the one most likely to reflect the 
effects of the Rule, wherein borrowers are assumed to: Take 
principal step-down loans initially, apply for loans subject to an 
ability-to-repay determination only after exhausting the principal 
step-down loans, and be approved for each loan under the mandatory 
underwriting approach with a probability informed by industry 
estimates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Elimination of Limits on Reborrowing. For storefront payday 
borrowers, most of the increase in the availability of credit if the 
proposal is adopted would be due to borrowers who have recently taken 
out loans being able to roll over their loans or borrow again within a 
shorter period of time as compared to the baseline of the 2017 Final 
Rule. This is because the mandatory underwriting and principal step-
down provisions in the 2017 Final Rule impose limits on the frequency, 
timing, and amount of reborrowing and the proposal if adopted would 
lift these limitations.
    The lessened constraints on reborrowing would additionally benefit 
consumers who wish to reborrow loans that would have been made via the 
principal step-down approach under the Rule but are unable to decrease 
the principal of their loans. For example, consider a borrower who has 
a loan due and is unable to repay one-third of the original principal 
amount (plus finance charges and fees) as required to obtain a second 
loan under the principal step-down approach, but who anticipates an 
upcoming influx of income. Under this proposal, such a borrower would 
experience the benefit of being able to reborrow the full amount of the 
loan until such time as the borrower realizes that income.\347\ This 
improved access to credit could result in numerous benefits, including 
avoiding delinquencies on the loan and the potential NSF fees 
associated with such delinquencies, or avoiding the negative 
consequences of being compelled to make unaffordable amortizing 
payments on the loan. However, the Bureau's simulations suggest that 
the majority of the increased access to credit would

[[Page 4290]]

result from the proposal's lifting of the reborrowing restrictions, 
rather than its removal of the initial loan size cap and the forced 
step-down features of loans made via the principal step-down approach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \347\ Necessarily mitigating this benefit is the fact that 
defaulting on a payday loan has relatively few direct costs, while 
there are non-trivial direct costs associated with each instance of 
reborrowing. As such, this benefit would be most significant for 
those consumers with a high likelihood of the necessary influx of 
income being realized after fewer instances of reborrowing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The Bureau does not believe the proposal, if adopted, would lead to 
a substantial decrease in instances of borrowers defaulting on payday 
loans, in part because the 2017 Final Rule's principal step-down 
provisions likely would encourage many consumers to reduce their debt 
over subsequent loans, rather than to default. It is necessarily true, 
however, that some borrowers who would be able to reborrow the full 
amount of the initial loan under the proposal may avoid a default that 
would have occurred under the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the 
Rule. This would be true for borrowers who would not have been able to 
successfully make the step-down payment on the principal step-down 
schedule, but can afford to pay just the fees (i.e., the reborrowing 
cost) and then eventually repay the loan in full when they experience a 
positive income shock. These borrowers will thus avoid the costs of 
default as discussed below and enjoy the benefit of remaining in good 
standing with their lender and eligible for future borrowing when 
needed.
    Increased Geographic Availability of Covered Short-Term Loans. 
Consumers would also have somewhat greater physical access to payday 
storefront locations under the proposal relative to the 2017 Final Rule 
baseline. As explained in the 2017 Final Rule, Bureau research on 
States that have enacted laws or regulations that led to substantial 
decreases in the overall revenue from storefront lending indicates that 
the number of stores has declined roughly in proportion to (i.e., by 
roughly the same percentage as) the decline in revenue.\348\ It follows 
that the proposal's impact on increasing the revenue of payday lenders 
relative to the 2017 Final Rule baseline should lead to a corresponding 
increase in the number of stores. This benefit is somewhat mitigated by 
the way payday stores locate, however. Nationwide, the median distance 
between a payday store and the next closest payday store is only 0.3 
miles. When a payday store closes in response to laws that reduce 
revenue, there is usually a store nearby that remains open. For 
example, across several States with regulatory changes, between 93 and 
95 percent of payday borrowers had to travel fewer than five additional 
miles to find a store that remained open. This is roughly equivalent to 
the median travel distance for payday borrowers nationwide. Using the 
loan volume impacts previously calculated above for storefront lenders, 
the Bureau forecasts that a large number of storefronts will remain 
open under the proposal that would have closed under the 2017 Final 
Rule, but that consumers' geographic access to stores will not be 
substantially affected in most areas.\349\ The Bureau noted, however, 
that for consumers seeking single-payment vehicle title loans, the 
benefits would be far larger as the 2017 Final Rule's estimated impacts 
would lead to an 89 to 93 percent reduction in revenue which could 
affect the viability of the industry.\350\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \348\ 82 FR 54472, 54487.
    \349\ The positive effects of increased storefront access are 
likely to be relatively larger in more rural areas; the impacts of 
this proposal on rural areas are considered in more detail below. 
There may also be benefits to consumers from other ``convenience 
factors'' associated with increased competition. Examples could 
include longer hours during which a nearby payday store is open, 
shorter wait times, etc. However, the Bureau lacks data or evidence 
that would allow for a conclusion that such benefits would result 
from the proposal, if adopted.
    \350\ 82 FR 54472, 54817, 54834-35.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

b. Costs to Consumers
    Relative to the 2017 Final Rule baseline, the available evidence 
suggests that the proposal would impose potential costs on consumers by 
increasing the risks of: Experiencing costs associated with extended 
sequences of payday loans and single-payment vehicle title loans; 
experiencing the effects (pecuniary and non-pecuniary) of delinquency 
and default on these loans; defaulting on other major financial 
obligations; and/or being unable to cover basic living expenses in 
order to pay off covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment 
loans.\351\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \351\ As mentioned previously, the effects associated with 
longer-term balloon-payment loans are likely to be small relative to 
the effects associated with payday and vehicle title loans. This is 
because longer-term balloon-payment loans are uncommon in the 
baseline against which costs are measured.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Extended Loan Sequences. As discussed in greater detail in the 2017 
Final Rule, the available evidence suggests that, absent that Rule, a 
material percentage of borrowers who take out storefront payday loans 
and single-payment vehicle title loans often end up taking out many 
loans in a row. This evidence came from the Bureau's own work, as well 
as analysis by independent researchers and analysts commissioned by 
industry. This proposal's removal of the 2017 Final Rule's limitations 
on making loans to borrowers who have recently had relevant covered 
short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans would enable borrowers 
to continue to borrow in these longer sequences of loans. As discussed 
above, some consumers who would choose under the proposal to reborrow 
beyond the limits imposed by the 2017 Final Rule might realize 
benefits, but would not be able to do so in the baseline. The evidence 
suggests, however, that the majority of consumers who would choose 
under the proposal to reborrow beyond the limits imposed by the 2017 
Final Rule would incur costs, costs they would not incur under the 
baseline. Studies have suggested that potential consequences from such 
reborrowing include increases in the delays in payments on other 
financial obligations, involuntary checking account closures, NSF and 
overdraft fees, financial instability, stress and related health 
measures, and decreases in consumption.\352\ (The elimination of the 
step-down structure imposed by the 2017 Final Rule's Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions may have similar effects; however, the Bureau 
is not aware of any studies that address this possibility.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \352\ The studies describing these results are discussed in the 
section 1022(b)(2) analysis of the 2017 Final Rule (82 FR 54472, 
54842-46) and below. As described therein, some of these studies 
differentiate between shorter and longer loan sequences. The 
majority of studies, however, rely on access to loans as their 
source of variation, and cannot make such distinctions. Similarly, 
few of these studies distinguish between the effects of loan amount 
independent of sequence length.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    However, these observed seemingly negative outcomes do not 
necessarily imply a decrease in consumer surplus. A conclusion that 
these impacts result in negative consumer surplus requires not just 
that the apparent impacts on consumers are negative, but also that 
these impacts were not accurately anticipated by the consumers and that 
consumers would have made different choices with more complete 
information. If these are the impacts of initiating a loan sequence for 
a significant share of consumers, and these impacts are not accurately 
anticipated (e.g., if consumers do not fully understand how long they 
are likely to be in debt), then economic analysis would suggest the 
effect on consumer surplus is likely negative. If, on the other hand, 
consumers making their initial borrowing decisions accurately 
anticipate the potential for these impacts, then the effect on consumer 
surplus is likely to be (at least weakly) positive, as there would be 
unobserved, unquantifiable, offsetting benefits.
    The Bureau weighed these possible outcomes in the 2017 Final Rule 
in part

[[Page 4291]]

VII.F.2 noting that the evidence on the impacts of the availability of 
payday loans on consumer welfare varies; that most studies focused on 
what happens when all access to payday loans is eliminated as opposed 
to restricted; and that within that body of literature studies have 
provided evidence that access to payday loans can have positive, 
negative, or no effects on various consumer outcomes. The Bureau's 
synopsis of the available evidence presented there (and above) is that 
access to payday loans may well be beneficial for those borrowers with 
discrete, short-term needs, but only if they are able to successfully 
avoid unanticipated long sequences of loans. The Bureau further 
concluded that the available evidence suggests that consumers who end 
up engaging in long sequences of reborrowing generally do not 
anticipate those outcomes ex ante \353\ and that the 2017 Final Rule, 
on average (and taking into account potential alternatives to which 
consumers might turn if long sequences were proscribed), is welfare 
enhancing for such consumers.\354\
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    \353\ See 82 FR 54472, 54568-70, 54816-17 (discussing the 
Bureau's analysis of certain data from the Mann Study including 
statistical evidence showing, in Professor Mann's words, ``that 
there is no significant relationship between the predicted number of 
days and the days to clearance''); see also Email from Ronald Mann, 
Professor, Columbia Law School to Jialian Wang and Jesse Leary, 
Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., (Sept. 24, 2013) (on file).
    \354\ For a discussion of alternative sources of credit, see 82 
FR 54472, 54609-11, 54841.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As this proposal's increase in access to credit is concentrated in 
long durations of indebtedness where the, albeit limited, evidence 
suggest the welfare impacts are negative on average, the estimated 
effect on average consumer surplus from these extended loan sequences 
would be negative relative to the chosen baseline.
    Increased Defaults and Delinquencies. Default rates on payday loans 
prior to the 2017 Final Rule were fairly low when calculated on a per 
loan basis (two percent in the data the Bureau analyzed).\355\ A 
potentially more meaningful measure of the frequency with which 
consumers experience default is therefore the share of loan sequences 
that end in default--including single-loan sequences where the consumer 
immediately defaults and multi-loan sequences which end in default 
after one or more instances of reborrowing. The Bureau's data show 
that, using a 30-day sequence definition (i.e., a loan taken within 30 
days of paying off a prior loan is considered part of a sequence of 
borrowing), 20 percent of loan sequences ended in default prior to the 
2017 Final Rule. Other researchers have found similar high levels of 
default. A study of payday borrowers in Texas found that 4.7 percent of 
loans were charged off but 30 percent of borrowers had a loan charged 
off in their first year of borrowing.\356\ It is reasonable to assume a 
return to these market conditions under the proposal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \355\ Default here is defined as a loan not being repaid as of 
the end of the period covered by the data or 30 days after the 
maturity date of the loan, whichever is later.
    \356\ Paige Marta Skiba & Jeremy Tobacman, Payday Loans, 
Uncertainty, and Discounting: Explaining Patterns of Borrowing, 
Repayment, and Default, at tbl. 2 (Vand. L. and Econ. Sch., Research 
Paper No. 08-33, 2008). Note that it may not be the case that all 
defaulted loans were charged off.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As previously discussed, the Bureau believes that some borrowers 
who would be able to reborrow the full amount of the initial loan under 
the proposal may avoid a default that would have occurred if lenders 
had to comply with the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions of the Rule. 
This would be the result for borrowers who would not have been able to 
successfully make the step-down payment on the principal step-down 
schedule, but could afford to pay just the fees, i.e., the reborrowing 
cost, and then eventually repay the loan in full when they experience a 
positive income shock. This also would be the result for borrowers who 
are able to obtain an initial loan, cannot demonstrate an ability to 
repay when seeking to reborrow, but would in fact be able to repay 
after experiencing a positive income shock. However, the Bureau 
believes that some borrowers taking out payday loans may experience 
additional defaults under the proposal than they would under the 2017 
Final Rule. This would occur in instances where the principal step-down 
requirement would have resulted in borrowers not reborrowing relatively 
larger amounts that could lead to an eventual default. As discussed in 
the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau believes the consequences of defaults 
can be harmful to at least some consumers, or in specific 
circumstances. If this proposal were to increase defaults on net, this 
would represent a potential cost to consumers.\357\ However, the Bureau 
does not know the prevalence of the possible increased defaults nor can 
it provide an estimate of the total potential cost per default to 
consumers.\358\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \357\ For a more detailed discussion of the costs of defaults 
and delinquencies, as well as the reasoning behind their likely 
increased prevalence under this proposal, see 82 FR 54472, 54838.
    \358\ See Paige Marta Skiba & Jeremy Tobacman, Payday Loans, 
Uncertainty, and Discounting: Explaining Patterns of Borrowing, 
Repayment, and Default (Vand. L. and Econ. Sch., Research Paper No. 
08-33, 2008) for a structural model examining reborrowing behavior 
including potential default costs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The source of those perceived default costs is unclear. Defaulting 
on a payday loan may initially appear to be relatively low cost for 
consumers, given that lenders generally do not report to the major 
credit bureaus and may not choose to pursue collection litigation if 
the amount owed is small. However, as lenders take a post-dated check 
(or account access) to secure the loan, and will seek to obtain payment 
by that method if the consumer fails to return to the store to repay 
(or reborrow), default can only occur when the consumer's account 
balance (inclusive of any overdraft buffer) has less than the amount 
owed. Default, as defined as a failed presentment of the post-dated 
check, therefore often results in NSF assessments. This could lead to 
negative balances and ultimately may lead or contribute to involuntary 
account closures which can decrease a consumer's access to checking 
accounts in the future. For example, in data analyzed by the Bureau, 
half of all identified online payday borrowers' accounts have at least 
one presentment from an online payday lender that results in overdraft 
or failure due to NSF during the 18-month observation period, resulting 
in an average of $185 in fees.\359\ Note, however, there are many 
potential debits or attempted debits that can contribute to account 
closures, and the Bureau has not disentangled the effects of attempts 
to collect on payday loans from other potential contributing causes to 
account closures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \359\ Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Online Payday Loan Payments 
(Apr. 2016), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201604_cfpb_online-payday-loan-payments.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In addition to default costs resulting from lenders' access to 
consumers' checking accounts, the 2017 Final Rule also noted that 
borrowers who default may be subject to collection efforts which can 
take aggressive forms, including repeated phone calls, in-person visits 
to the consumer's home or workplace, and calls or visits to consumers' 
friends or relatives.\360\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \360\ 82 FR 54472, 54574.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Additionally, both the loss of the option value of future borrowing 
and non-pecuniary costs of failing to pay may add to the consumer's 
perception of the cost of default. The option value refers to the 
opportunity to borrow again in the future, at least from the specific 
lender, which is decreased after a default. This results in additional 
costs to the consumer in terms of decreased access to credit, or 
additional search beyond their preferred lender, that may, or may not, 
be accurately understood by

[[Page 4292]]

the consumer at the time of initial borrowing. Default may also impose 
non-pecuniary costs, such as the loss of access to the borrower's 
preferred lender. The Bureau seeks additional information on the 
expected change in the prevalence of default and the costs associated 
therewith.
    For borrowers who would take out short-term vehicle title loans 
under the proposal, the impacts would be greater. As previously noted, 
the 2017 Final Rule will end virtually all such lending. Default rates 
on single-payment vehicle title loans are higher than those on payday 
loans. Additionally, as there will be a relatively greater increase in 
vehicle title loans compared to payday loans, the increase in defaults 
on vehicle title loans that would result from this proposal would be 
relatively larger compared to payday. In the data analyzed by the 
Bureau for the 2017 Final Rule, the default rate on all loans is nine 
percent, and the sequence-level default rate is 31 percent.\361\ In the 
data the Bureau has analyzed, five percent of all single-payment 
vehicle title loans lead to repossession, and 18 percent of sequences 
of loans end with repossession. So, at the loan level and at the 
sequence level, slightly more than half of all defaults lead to 
repossession of the borrower's vehicle.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \361\ There is also evidence that the default rates on longer-
term balloon-payment title loans are high. The Bureau has data for a 
single lender that made longer-term vehicle title loans with both 
balloon and amortizing payment schedules. Those loans with balloon 
payments defaulted at a substantially higher rate. See Supplemental 
Findings at 30.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The range of potential ancillary impacts on a borrower of losing a 
vehicle to repossession depends on the transportation needs of the 
borrower's household and the available transportation alternatives. 
According to two surveys of vehicle title loan borrowers, 15 percent of 
all borrowers report that they would have no way to get to work or 
school if they lost their vehicle to repossession.\362\ Fully 35 
percent of borrowers pledge the title to the only working vehicle in 
the household.\363\ Even those with a second vehicle or the ability to 
get rides from friends or take public transportation might experience 
inconvenience or even hardship from the loss of a vehicle. The Bureau 
seeks additional information on the prevalence and costs of the 
possible ancillary effects of repossession.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \362\ Kathryn Fritzdixon et al., Dude, Where's my Car Title?: 
The Law Behavior and Economics of Title Lending Markets, 2014 U. 
Ill. L. Rev. 1013, 1038 (2014); Pew Charitable Trusts, Auto Title 
Loans--Market practices and borrower experiences, at 14, tbl. 3 
(2015), http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2015/03/
autotitleloansreport.pdf.
    \363\ Pew Charitable Trusts, Auto Title Loans--Market practices 
and borrowers' experiences, at 14 (2015), http://www.pewtrusts.org/
~/media/assets/2015/03/autotitleloansreport.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Similarly, to the extent the proposal would increase the number of 
payday and vehicle title loans and length of loan sequences relative to 
the 2017 Final Rule, the proposal likely would increase the frequency 
of delinquencies. Borrowers who become delinquent may incur penalty 
fees, late fees, or NSF fees, which can have associated indirect costs 
(e.g., delinquencies on other bills, difficulty meeting their basic 
living expenses, etc.). Late payments on payday loans (defined as a 
payment that is sufficiently late that the lender deposits the 
borrower's check or attempts to collect using ACH authorization) appear 
to range from seven \364\ to over 10 percent.\365\ These late payments 
can be costly for borrowers. If a lender deposits a check or submits a 
payment request and it is returned for insufficient funds, the 
borrower's bank or credit union will likely charge the borrower an NSF 
fee of approximately $35, and the lender may charge a returned-item 
fee. It should be noted, however, that the harm from NSF will be 
mitigated by the limitations on payment practices and related notices, 
as required by the Payment Provisions described in the section-by-
section analysis of the 2017 Final Rule. The Bureau does not know the 
total potential cost of potential increased delinquencies from the 
proposal, and it therefore seeks additional information about these 
costs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \364\ ``For the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010, we 
deposited customer checks or presented an Automated Clearing House 
(ACH) authorization for approximately 6.7 percent and 6.5 percent, 
respectively, of all the customer checks and ACHs we received and we 
were unable to collect approximately 63 percent and 64 percent, 
respectively, of these deposited customer checks or presented ACHs. 
Total charge-offs, net of recoveries, for the years ended December 
31, 2011 and 2010 were approximately $106.8 million and $108 
million, respectively.'' Advance America, 2011 Annual Report (Form 
10-K), at 27, available at http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1299704/000104746912002758/a2208026z10-k.htm.
    \365\ Paige Marta Skiba & Jeremy Tobacman, Payday Loans, 
Uncertainty, and Discounting: Explaining Patterns of Borrowing, 
Repayment, and Default (Vand. L. and Econ. Sch., Research Paper No. 
08-33) (2008).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

c. New Evidence on the Benefits and Costs to Consumers of Access to 
Payday and Other Covered Short-Term and Longer-Term Balloon-Payment 
Loans
    There have been several studies made available since the 2017 Final 
Rule that address the welfare effects of payday loans. As noted 
earlier, the evidence in these studies did not alter the Bureau's views 
based on earlier evidence; however, it is important to include these in 
this discussion of the evidence that bears on the benefits and costs of 
the proposal. The Bureau seeks comment on any additional relevant 
research, information, or data that has arisen since the 2017 Rule was 
published.
    Studies of the Direct Effects of Payday Loans and Small Dollar Loan 
Regulations. As was the case with the studies described in the 2017 
Final Rule, the new evidence about the benefits and costs of payday 
loans discussed here is not uniform in its welfare implications. 
Bronson and Smith (2018) surveyed 48 payday loan borrowers in Southeast 
Alabama to assess their satisfaction with payday loans.\366\ The 
authors ask a limited number of questions, but find that 87.5 percent 
of respondents are ``extremely'' or ``very'' satisfied with payday 
loans on average, but that only 41.7 percent are ``extremely'' or 
``very'' satisfied with their most recent loan.\367\ They also show 
that 71 percent of payday borrowers, were they to not have access to a 
payday loan, would seek an alternative loan (e.g., credit card, borrow 
from family or friend).\368\ Finally, the authors show that fewer than 
21 percent of respondents support limits on the number or dollar amount 
of loans available, and that none of the respondents support an 
outright ban of payday loans.\369\ The authors note the limited scope 
of their study, which focuses on few customers in a very specific 
geographic region. Additionally, the methodology employed leads to a 
self-selected, likely non-representative sample of respondents, 
limiting the usefulness of these results for informing this analysis of 
benefits and costs.\370\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \366\ Christy A. Bronson & Daniel J. Smith, Swindled or Served?: 
A Survey of Payday Lending Customers in Southeast Alabama, 40 S. 
Bus. & Econ. J. 16 (2017).
    \367\ Id. at 22-23.
    \368\ Id. at 25.
    \369\ Id. at 23-24.
    \370\ Respondents were solicited by surveyors standing in public 
places who asked if the respondent had taken a payday loan and was 
willing to complete a survey. No validation of actual experience 
with payday loans was attempted for respondents, let alone non-
respondents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Lukongo and Miller (2017) found that Arkansas' binding interest 
rate cap creates additional costs for consumers of small-dollar 
installment products.\371\ The authors show that Arkansas' interest 
rate cap did not decrease demand for small-dollar installment loans, 
noting that many Arkansans in

[[Page 4293]]

counties adjacent to States allowing these loans take small-dollar 
installment loans. The authors also document an ``installment loan 
credit desert'' in the interior of Arkansas (noting that nearly 97 
percent of Arkansans holding these loans reside in perimeter counties), 
and that transportation costs increase the effective APR for those 
borrowers who are able to travel in order to obtain such loans. While 
not directly related to payday (small-dollar installment loans have a 
different structure that is not affected by the 2017 Final Rule or this 
proposal), this study documents that demand for credit is not 
eliminated by restrictions on the supply of that credit, and that 
customers in border counties are better able to travel across State 
lines to obtain loans, and do so with some frequency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \371\ Onyumbe Enumbe Lukongo & Thomas W. Miller, Adverse 
Consequences of the Binding Constitutional Interest Rate Cap in the 
State of Arkansas (Mercatus Working Paper, 2017), https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/lukongo_wp_mercatus_v1.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Ramirez (2017) shows that when Ohio constrained interest rates on 
payday loans in 2008, licenses for pawn brokers, precious metal buyers, 
alternative small-loan, and second-mortgage lending increased.\372\ The 
author concludes that demand for the credit previously satisfied by 
payday loans persisted after the reducing in the availability of those 
loans, and that supply-side effects evolved in order to partially meet 
this demand. The author's implication is that these alternatives to 
payday loans are substitutes (though likely imperfect ones). The Bureau 
notes there may be other likely imperfect substitutes for payday loans 
available to consumers, such as borrowing from relatives, decreasing 
expenses, borrowing from an unlicensed lender, but the Bureau does not 
have data concerning to what extent these alternatives are available 
and at what prices as well as the ancillary benefits and costs 
associated with these possible alternatives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \372\ Stefanie Ramirez, Payday-Loan Bans: Evidence of Indirect 
Effects on Supply (SSRN Working Paper, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Studies Describing the Links Between Payday Loans and Health 
Issues. The 2017 Final Rule described in general terms that payday loan 
use could be associated with non-pecuniary benefits or costs, but did 
not present empirical evidence of these impacts.\373\ A newer payday-
related literature shows correlations between payday loan access or use 
and health outcomes.\374\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \373\ The Bureau was aware of at least one of these papers prior 
to the 2017 Final Rule. At the time, the paper was a working paper 
with preliminary results. As such, the Bureau chose not to discuss 
its findings in the 2017 Final Rule.
    \374\ However, the Bureau underscores that correlation between 
two variables does not necessarily imply causation, specifically, 
that payday loan access or use is the cause of these health 
outcomes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Cuffe and Gibbs (2017) explore the relationship between payday loan 
access and liquor sales.\375\ The authors find a persistent reduction 
in liquor sales resulting from payday lending regulations that 
restricted access for frequent payday loan users. They also show that 
this decline in sales is nearly three times larger for liquor stores 
closest to payday lenders. Importantly, the authors also find no 
corresponding decline in overall expenditures from the restricted 
access to payday loans. The authors imply these finding could have 
public health impacts, though they do not provide estimates of these 
impacts, and the direction of any overall welfare impacts is not 
clear.\376\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \375\ Harold E. Cuffe & Christopher G. Gibbs, The Effect of 
Payday Lending Restrictions on Liquor Sales, 85(1) J. Banking & Fin. 
132-45 (2017).
    \376\ The authors also note specific behavioral biases with 
which their findings are consistent. However, they are unable to 
test for any specific biases that actually are at play. As such, the 
Bureau's analysis is not informed by this aspect of the paper.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Eisenberg-Guyot et al. (2018) assess the impact of ``fringe banking 
services'' on health outcomes.\377\ Using Current Population Survey 
data and propensity score matching, the authors show ``fringe loan'' 
use is associated with 38 percent higher prevalence of reporting poor 
health. The authors imply that the magnitude suggests that at least 
some fringe loan use may cause a decline in perceived health. However, 
the authors do not compellingly address the possibility of reverse 
causality: i.e., the possibility that individuals suffering (or 
reporting to suffer) poor health are more likely to use payday loans. 
Additionally, if payday borrowers affected by this proposal would be 
using other ``fringe loans'' absent the proposal, the proposal's 
increase in payday and vehicle title access would have no effect on 
their health.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \377\ Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot et al., From Payday Loans To 
Pawnshops: Fringe Banking, The Unbanked, And Health, 37(3) Health 
Aff. 429 (2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Sweet et al. (2018) use data from a small, non-random survey of 
debt and health to test whether short-term loans are associated with 
emotional and physical health indicators.\378\ They find that having 
ever used a short-term loan is associated with a number of risk 
factors, including poor physical health and anxiety, even after 
controlling for several socio-demographic covariates. However, the 
survey used is small (n=286), they do not distinguish between types of 
loans, frequency of use, or when a loan was used, and their sample 
comes from one metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in a State with an 
interest rate cap that does not allow for traditional payday lending 
(Boston, MA).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \378\ Elizabeth Sweet et al., Short-term lending: Payday loans 
as risk factors for anxiety, inflammation and poor health, 5 SSM--
Population Health, 114-121 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2018.05.009.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In the only study regarding health effects of payday loan access 
using a causal identification strategy, Lee (2017) explores the link 
between payday loans and household welfare by estimating the impact of 
payday loan access on an extreme measure of household distress: 
Suicide.\379\ The author uses a distance to border and difference-in-
difference identification approach to provide evidence consistent with 
payday loans increasing the risk of suicide attempts for low- and 
moderate-income borrowers and employed workers. The author also shows 
that completed suicides increase by relatively more than attempts. The 
estimated magnitudes are quite high. Notably, the author does not 
estimate whether the increase in suicide risk associated with initial 
access to payday loans is reversed (or possibly even exacerbated) by 
the removal of some of that access and as such, the implication for 
this proposal's effective reinstatement of access to more borrowing is 
unclear.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \379\ Jaeyoon Lee, Credit Access and Household Welfare: Evidence 
From Payday Lending (SSRN Working Paper, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Studies Describing the Links Between Financial Education and Payday 
Loan Use. An expanding literature deals with the impact of financial 
education and literacy on the use of payday loans.
    For example, Harvey (2017) shows that financial education mandates 
significantly reduce the likelihood and frequency of payday 
borrowing.\380\ Specifically, the author finds that individuals who 
were mandated to take personal finance classes in high school are less 
likely to have used payday loans, and used fewer payday loans compared 
to those individuals who did not have a mandated personal finance 
class. Kim and Lee (2017) explore whether financial literacy impacts 
payday loan use and find, using the 2012 National Financial Capability 
Study, that increased financial literacy is negatively associated with 
payday loan use.\381\ In slight contrast, Alyousif and Kalenkoski 
(2017) use a self-selected sample to find that seeking financial advice 
about savings and investment is associated with less

[[Page 4294]]

payday loan use, but that seeking debt counseling is correlated with a 
higher chance of payday loan use.\382\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \380\ Melody Harvey, Impact of Financial Education Mandates on 
Younger Consumers' Use of Alternative Financial Services (SSRN 
Working Paper, 2017).
    \381\ Kyoung Tae Kim and Jonghee Lee, Financial literacy and use 
of payday loans in the United States, 25(11) Applied Econ. Letters 
781 (2017).
    \382\ Maher Alyousif & Charlene M. Kalenkoski, Asking for 
Action: Does Financial Advice Improve Financial Behaviors? (SSRN 
Working Paper, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    While the relationship between financial education and literacy and 
payday loan use has only indirect implications for the impacts of 
payday loan use on consumers, the apparent finding that consumers with 
greater financial education and literacy use payday loans less may 
imply that the use of these loans is at least somewhat driven by the 
information consumers have about these loans. This, in turn, could have 
implications for the consumer surplus that would result from use of 
these loans. But perhaps the more direct implication is that improved 
financial education programs and opportunities could be a viable 
alternative to more direct market interventions such as issuing 
regulations.
    Summary of Research Findings on the Welfare Effects of Consumers of 
Payday Loan Use. The Bureau believes the new research described here 
supplements, and does not contradict, the research described in the 
2017 Final Rule. The Bureau welcomes comment on these new studies and 
other new research concerning the effect on consumers from using payday 
loans.

C. Potential Benefits and Costs of the Proposal to Consumers and 
Covered Persons--Recordkeeping Requirements

    The 2017 Final Rule requires lenders to maintain sufficient records 
to demonstrate compliance with the Rule. Those requirements include, 
among other records to be kept, loan records; materials collected 
during the process of originating loans, including the information used 
to determine whether a borrower had the ability to repay the loan, if 
applicable; records of reporting loan information to RISes, as 
required; and records of attempts to withdraw payments from borrowers' 
accounts, and the outcomes of those attempts. The Bureau's proposed 
revocation of the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions would eliminate the 
recordkeeping requirements set forth in the 2017 Final Rule that are 
not related to payment withdrawal attempts.
1. Benefits and Costs to Covered Persons
    The Bureau estimated in the 2017 Final Rule that the costs 
associated with electronic storage of records was small. As such, the 
Bureau estimates the benefits from avoiding these costs under the 
proposal to be small as well. Specifically, the Bureau estimates the 
benefits to be less than $50 per lender if they purchased additional 
storage themselves (e.g., a portable hard drive) to comply with the 
2017 Final Rule, or $10 per month if they leased storage (e.g., from 
one of the many online cloud storage vendors). Lenders would also avoid 
the need to develop procedures and train staff to retain records under 
this proposal; these benefits are included in earlier estimates of the 
benefits of no longer needing to develop procedures, upgrade systems, 
and train staff.
2. Benefits and Costs to Consumers
    Consumers will be minimally affected by the proposed revocation of 
mandatory underwriting-related recordkeeping requirements.

D. Potential Benefits and Costs of the Proposal to Consumers and 
Covered Persons--Requirements Related to Information Furnishing and 
Registered Information Systems

    As discussed above, the 2017 Final Rule requires lenders to report 
covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans to every RIS. 
This requirement would be eliminated by this proposal, as would the 
potential benefits and costs from the existence of, and reporting to, 
every RIS.
1. Benefits and Costs to Covered Persons
    The proposal, if adopted, would eliminate the benefits, described 
in the 2017 Final Rule, that are afforded to firms that apply to become 
RISes by eliminating the requirement on lenders to furnish information 
regarding covered short-term and longer-term balloon-payment loans to 
every RIS and to obtain a consumer report from at least one RIS before 
originating such loans.
    The proposal, if adopted, would also eliminate the benefits to 
lenders from access to RISes described in the 2017 Final Rule. Most of 
these benefits would result from decreased fraud and increased 
transparency. These benefits include, inter alia, easier identification 
of borrowers with past defaults on payday loans issued by other 
lenders, avoiding issuing loans to borrowers who currently have 
outstanding loans from other lenders, etc. This proposal's elimination 
of these benefits would represent a cost to lenders.
2. Benefits and Costs to Consumers
    The proposed elimination of the RIS-related requirements would have 
minimal impact on consumers. The largest benefit for consumers from the 
RIS-related provisions, as noted in the 2017 Final Rule, was compliance 
by lenders with the underwriting requirements of the Rule. This benefit 
would be moot, given the proposed revocation of the Rule's Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions. The remaining benefits this proposal would 
eliminate are small.

E. Other Unquantified Benefits and Costs

    Some of the proposal's impacts noted above are difficult if not 
impossible to quantify, because their magnitudes or values are unknown 
or unknowable. One of the most notable of these is the consumer welfare 
impact of increased access to short-term vehicle title loans. While the 
structure of these loans is somewhat similar to payday loans, there are 
no direct studies of the impact of these loans on consumer welfare. 
Additionally, there is no obvious way to sign or scale the welfare 
effects of access to vehicle title loans relative to payday loans. For 
example, it is possible that the larger loan amounts available from 
vehicle title lenders enable consumers to better handle more 
substantial financial shocks and that the risk of losing a vehicle in 
the event of default provides consumers with greater incentives to 
become more fully informed before initiating loans. This would result 
in relatively more positive welfare effects relative to payday loans. 
However, it is also possible that the larger loan amounts may result in 
more repossessions after defaults that may have additional adverse 
consequences for some consumers. If this possibility were the reality, 
the welfare effects of the proposal would be more negative for vehicle 
title consumers than for payday consumers. However, within the set of 
17 States that permit short-term vehicle title lending, 12 also permit 
longer-term lending; \383\ so the substitution of longer-term lending 
for short-term lending has significant potential to mitigate the 
negative welfare impacts of the proposal. Absent reliable evidence 
about the welfare effects of access to short-term vehicle title loans, 
the Bureau does not attempt to quantify these effects here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \383\ One of the States that only allows short-term vehicle 
title lending is Ohio, but recent legislation will eliminate such 
lending in April 2019. Note that an additional 6 States only allow 
longer-term vehicle title lending, and those would be unaffected by 
this proposal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    There are other, less direct effects of the proposal that are also 
left unquantified. These impacts include (but are not limited to): 
Intrinsic utility (``warm glow'') from access to loans that are not 
available under the 2017 Final Rule; innovative regulatory approaches 
by States that would have been

[[Page 4295]]

discouraged by the 2017 Final Rule; public and private health costs 
that may (or may not) result from payday loan use; suicide-related 
costs that may (or may not) result from increased access to loans; 
changes to the profitability and industry structure in response to the 
2017 Final Rule (e.g., industry consolidation that may create scale 
efficiencies, movement to installment product offerings) that would not 
occur under the proposal; concerns about regulatory uncertainty and/or 
inconsistent regulatory regimes across markets; benefits or costs to 
outside parties associated with the change in access to payday loans 
(e.g., revenues of providers of payday substitutes like pawnshops, 
overdraft fees paid by consumers and received by financial 
institutions, the cost of late fees and unpaid bills, etc.); indirect 
costs arising from increased repossessions of vehicles in response to 
non-payment of title loans; non-pecuniary effects associated with 
financial stress that may be alleviated or exacerbated by increased 
access to/use of payday loans; and any impacts on lenders of fraud and 
opacity related to a lack of industry-wide RISes (e.g., borrowers 
circumventing lender policies against taking multiple concurrent payday 
loans, lenders having more difficulty identifying chronic defaulters, 
etc.). If there exist credible quantitative estimates of these impacts, 
the Bureau welcomes comments providing those estimates.

F. Potential Impact on Depository Creditors With $10 Billion or Less in 
Total Assets

    The Bureau believes that depository institutions and credit unions 
with less than $10 billion in assets are minimally constrained by the 
2017 Final Rule's Mandatory Underwriting Provisions. To the limited 
extent depository institutions and credit unions did make loans in this 
market, many of those loans were conditionally exempted from the 2017 
Final Rule under Sec.  1041.3(e) or (f) as alternative or accommodation 
loans. As such, this proposal would have minimal impact on these 
institutions.
    However, it is possible that the removal of the 2017 Final Rule's 
restrictions would allow depository institutions and credit unions with 
less than $10 billion in assets to develop products that are not viable 
under the 2017 Final Rule (subject to applicable Federal and State laws 
and under the supervision of their prudential regulators).\384\ To the 
extent these products are developed and successfully marketed, they 
would represent a benefit of this proposal for these institutions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \384\ As discussed previously, this may be even more likely than 
it would have been at the time the 2017 Final Rule was drafted. The 
OCC not only rescinded guidance on deposit advance products, but has 
also encouraged banks to explore additional small-dollar installment 
lending products. Additionally, the FDIC is seeking comment on 
small-dollar products that its banks could offer. These factors 
might allow for additional lending if not for the 2017 Final Rule 
(e.g., some additional product offerings may result from this 
proposal that would have been inviable under the 2017 Final Rule).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

G. Potential Impact on Consumers in Rural Areas

    Under the proposal, consumers in rural areas would have a greater 
increase in the availability of covered short-term and longer-term 
balloon-payment loans originated through storefronts relative to 
consumers living in non-rural areas. As described above, the Bureau 
estimates that removing the restrictions in the 2017 Final Rule on 
making these loans would likely lead to a substantial increase in the 
markets for storefront payday loans and storefront single-payment 
vehicle title loans. In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau analyzed how 
the adoption of State laws restricting payday lending in Colorado, 
Virginia, and Washington led to significant contraction in the number 
of payday stores. In those States, nearly all borrowers living in non-
rural areas (MSAs) still had access to a bricks-and-mortar payday 
store. However, the Bureau noted that a substantial minority of 
borrowers living outside of MSAs no longer had a payday store readily 
available following the contraction in the industry. In Colorado, 
Virginia, and Washington, 37 percent, 13 percent, and 30 percent of 
borrowers, respectively, would need to travel at least five additional 
miles to reach a store that remained open. In Virginia, almost all 
borrowers had a store that remained open within 20 miles of their 
previous store. And, in Washington 9 percent of borrowers would have to 
travel at least 20 additional miles.\385\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \385\ 82 FR 54472, 54853.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    While many borrowers who live outside of MSAs do travel that far to 
take out a payday loan, many do not. As such, the expected increase in 
bricks-and-mortar stores that would result from this proposal should 
improve access to storefront payday loans for those borrowers unwilling 
or unable to travel greater distances for these loans. While rural 
borrowers for whom visiting a storefront payday lender is impracticable 
under the 2017 Final Rule retain the option to seek covered short-term 
or longer-term balloon-payment loans from online lenders, restrictions 
imposed by State and local law may not allow this in some 
jurisdictions. Additionally, not all of these would-be borrowers 
necessarily have access to the internet, a necessity in order to 
originate online loans.\386\ For those consumers who are unable or 
unwilling to seek loans from an online lender, the proposal would 
provide more, and potentially more desirable, borrowing options.
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    \386\ In considering this in the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau 
noted that ``rural populations are less likely to have access to 
high-speed broadband compared to the overall population,'' but that 
``the bandwidth and speed required to access an online payday lender 
is minimal,'' and that ``most potential borrowers in rural 
communities will likely be able to access the internet by some means 
(e.g., dial up, or access at the public library or school).'' 82 FR 
54472, 54853. However, there are likely to be at least some rural 
borrowers that were displaced from the market by the 2017 Final 
Rule.
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    The Bureau expects that the relative impacts on rural and non-rural 
consumers of vehicle title loans would be similar to what would occur 
in the payday market. That is, rural consumers would be likely to 
experience a greater increase in the physical availability of single-
payment vehicle title loans made through storefronts than borrowers 
living in non-rural areas.
    Finally, the Bureau notes that it received a number of comments on 
the 2016 Proposal indicating that some online payday lenders operate in 
rural areas and comprise large shares of their local economies. Given 
that the proposal would allow these lenders to operate at their pre-
2017 Final Rule capacities, it is likely that at least some rural 
lenders would be substantially and positively impacted by the proposal, 
benefiting their local economies.
    Given the available evidence, the Bureau believes that, other than 
the relatively greater increase in the physical availability of covered 
short-term loans made through storefronts, consumers living in rural 
areas would not experience substantially different effects of the 
proposal than other consumers.\387\
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    \387\ In the 2017 Final Rule, the Bureau noted the potential for 
small effects on a few local labor markets in which online lenders 
comprise a significant share of employment. 82 FR 54472, 54853. 
Corresponding effects may result from this proposal as well. 
However, the specifics of these impacts would depend on the 
competitive characteristics of these labor markets (both as they 
currently exist and in the counterfactual) that are not easily 
discernable or generalizable, and are of a second-order concern 
relative to the more direct impacts noted above.
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IX. Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act \388\ as amended by the Small 
Business

[[Page 4296]]

Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 \389\ (RFA) requires each 
agency to consider the potential impact of its regulations on small 
entities, including small businesses, small governmental units, and 
small not-for-profit organizations.\390\ The RFA defines a ``small 
business'' as a business that meets the size standard developed by the 
Small Business Administration pursuant to the Small Business Act.\391\
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    \388\ Public Law 96-354, 94 Stat. 1164 (1980).
    \389\ Public Law 104-21, section 241, 110 Stat. 847, 864-65 
(1996).
    \390\ 5 U.S.C. 601 through 612. The term `` `small organization' 
means any not-for-profit enterprise which is independently owned and 
operated and is not dominant in its field, unless an agency 
establishes [an alternative definition under notice and comment].'' 
5 U.S.C. 601(4). The term `` `small governmental jurisdiction' means 
governments of cities, counties, towns, townships, villages, school 
districts, or special districts, with a population of less than 
fifty thousand, unless an agency establishes [an alternative 
definition after notice and comment].'' 5 U.S.C. 601(5).
    \391\ 5 U.S.C. 601(3). The Bureau may establish an alternative 
definition after consulting with the SBA and providing an 
opportunity for public comment. Id.
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    The RFA generally requires an agency to conduct an initial 
regulatory flexibility analysis (IRFA) and a final regulatory 
flexibility analysis (FRFA) of any rule subject to notice-and-comment 
rulemaking requirements, unless the agency certifies that the rule will 
not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small 
entities.\392\ The Bureau also is subject to certain additional 
procedures under the RFA involving the convening of a panel to consult 
with small business representatives prior to proposing a rule for which 
an IRFA is required.\393\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \392\ 5 U.S.C. 601 through 612.
    \393\ 5 U.S.C. 609.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    As discussed above, this proposal would rescind the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions of the 2017 Final Rule. The section 1022(b)(2) 
analysis above describes how, if adopted, this proposal would reduce 
the costs and burdens on covered persons, including small entities, 
relative to a baseline where compliance with the 2017 Final Rule 
becomes mandatory. Additionally, the 2017 Final Rule's FRFA contains a 
discussion of the specific costs and burdens imposed by the 2017 Final 
Rule on small entities, including those imposed by the Mandatory 
Underwriting Provisions that this proposal would reverse.\394\ In 
addition to the removal of costs and burdens, all operations under 
current law, as well as those that would be adopted if compliance with 
the Mandatory Underwriting Provisions becomes mandatory, would remain 
available to small entities should this proposal be adopted. Thus, a 
small entity that is in compliance with the law at such time when this 
proposal might be adopted would not need to take any additional action 
to remain in compliance. Based on these considerations, the proposed 
rule would not have a significant economic impact on any small 
entities.
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    \394\ 82 FR 54472, 54853.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Accordingly, the undersigned hereby certifies that this proposed 
rule, if adopted, would not have a significant economic impact on a 
substantial number of small entities. Thus, neither an IRFA nor a small 
business review panel is required for this proposal. The Bureau 
requests comments on this analysis and any relevant data.

X. Paperwork Reduction Act

    Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA),\395\ Federal 
agencies are generally required to seek Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) approval for information collection requirements prior to 
implementation. Under the PRA, the Bureau may not conduct or sponsor 
and, notwithstanding any other provision of law, a person is not 
required to respond to an information collection unless the information 
collection displays a valid control number assigned by OMB. The 
collections of information related to the 2017 Final Rule were 
previously submitted to OMB in accordance with the PRA and assigned OMB 
Control Number 3170-0065 for tracking purposes, however this control 
number is not yet active as OMB has not approved these information 
collection requests. This proposed rule would substantially revise or 
remove several of the information collection requirements contained in 
the Rule and, as such, a new information collection request seeking a 
new OMB control number has been submitted to OMB for review under PRA 
Section 3507(d).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \395\ 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    A revised Supporting Statement detailing the changes to the 
information collections and their effects on the Rule's overall burden 
will be made available for public comment on the electronic docket 
accompanying this proposed rule.
    Comments are specifically invited on: (a) Whether the collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the Bureau, including whether the information will have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the Bureau's estimate of the burden of the 
collection of information, including the validity of the methods and 
the assumptions used; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize 
the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including 
through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of 
information technology. Comments on these issues may be sent to the 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB, Attention: Desk 
Officer for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Comments may 
also be sent to the addresses identified in the ADDRESSES section 
above. All comments will become a matter of public record.

List of Subjects in 12 CFR Part 1041

    Banks, Banking, Consumer protection, Credit, Credit Unions, 
National banks, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Savings 
associations, Trade practices.

Authority and Issuance

    For the reasons set forth above, the Bureau proposes to amend 12 
CFR part 1041, as set forth below:

PART 1041--PAYDAY, VEHICLE TITLE, AND CERTAIN HIGH-COST INSTALLMENT 
LOANS

0
1. The authority citation for part 1041 continues to read as follows:

    Authority:  12 U.S.C. 5511, 5512, 5514(b), 5531(b), (c), and 
(d), 5532.

Subpart A--General


Sec.  1041.1  [Amended]

0
2. Amend Sec.  1041.1 by removing the last sentence of paragraph (b).


Sec.  1041.2  [Amended]

0
3. Amend Sec.  1041.2 by removing and reserving paragraphs (a)(14) and 
(19).

Subpart B--[Removed and Reserved]

0
4. Remove and reserve subpart B, consisting of Sec. Sec.  1041.4 
through 1041.6.
0
5. Revise the heading for subpart D to read as follows:

Subpart D--Recordkeeping, Anti-Evasion, and Severability


Sec.  Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11   [Removed and Reserved]

0
6. Remove and reserve Sec. Sec.  1041.10 and 1041.11.
0
7. Amend Sec.  1041.12 by revising paragraph (b)(1) and removing and 
reserving paragraphs (b)(2) and (3) to read as follows:


Sec.  1041.12  Compliance program and record retention.

* * * * *
    (b) * * *
    (1) Retention of loan agreement for covered loans. To comply with 
the

[[Page 4297]]

requirements in this paragraph (b), a lender must retain or be able to 
reproduce an image of the loan agreement for each covered loan that the 
lender originates.
* * * * *
0
8. In appendix A to part 1041, remove Model Forms A-1 and A-2 and add 
reserved Model Forms A-1 and A-2 and headings for Model Forms A-3 
through A-5 and Model Clauses A-6 through A-8 to read as follows:

Appendix A to Part 1041--Model Forms

A-1 Model Form

    [Reserved]

A-2 Model Form

    [Reserved]

A-3 Model Form

* * * * *

A-4 Model Form

* * * * *

A-5 Model Form

* * * * *

A-6 Model Clause

* * * * *

A-7 Model Clause

* * * * *

A-8 Model Clause

* * * * *
0
9. In supplement I to part 1041:
0
a. Under Section 1041.2--Definitions, revise 2(a)(5) Consummation and 
remove 2(a)(19) Vehicle Security.
0
b. Under Section 1041.3--Scope of Coverage; Exclusions; Exemptions, 
revise 3(e)(2) Borrowing History Condition and 3(e)(3) Income 
Documentation Condition.
0
c. Remove Section 1041.4--Identification of Unfair and Abusive 
Practice, Section 1041.5--Ability-to-Repay Determination Required, 
Section 1041.6--Conditional Exemption for Certain Covered Short-Term 
Loans, Section 1041.10--Furnishing Information to Registered 
Information Systems, and Section 1041.11--Registered Information 
Systems.
0
d. In Section 1041.12--Compliance Program and Record Retention:
0
i. Revise 12(a) Compliance Program and 12(b) Record Retention.
0
ii. Remove 12(b)(1) Retention of Loan Agreement and Documentation 
Obtained in Connection With Originating a Covered Short-Term or Covered 
Longer-Term Balloon-Payment Loan, 12(b)(2) Electronic Records in 
Tabular Format Regarding Origination Calculations and Determinations 
for a Covered Short-Term or Longer-Term Balloon-Payment Loan Under 
Sec.  1041.5, 12(b)(3) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding 
Type, Terms, and Performance of Covered Short-Term or Covered Longer-
Term Balloon-Payment Loans, and Paragraph 12(b)(3)(iv).
0
iii. Revise 12(b)(5) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding 
Payment Practices for Covered Loans.
    The revisions read as follows:

Supplement I to Part 1041--Official Interpretations

Section 1041.2--Definitions

* * * * *

2(a)(5) Consummation

    1. New loan. When a contractual obligation on the consumer's 
part is created is a matter to be determined under applicable law. A 
contractual commitment agreement, for example, that under applicable 
law binds the consumer to the loan terms would be consummation. 
Consummation, however, does not occur merely because the consumer 
has made some financial investment in the transaction (for example, 
by paying a non-refundable fee) unless applicable law holds 
otherwise.
* * * * *

Section 1041.3--Scope of Coverage; Exclusions; Exemptions

* * * * *

3(e) Alternative Loans

* * * * *

3(e)(2) Borrowing History Condition

    1. Relevant records. A lender may make an alternative covered 
loan under Sec.  1041.3(e) only if the lender determines from its 
records that the consumer's borrowing history on alternative covered 
loans made under Sec.  1041.3(e) meets the criteria set forth in 
Sec.  1041.3(e)(2). The lender is not required to obtain information 
about a consumer's borrowing history from other persons, such as by 
obtaining a consumer report.
    2. Determining 180-day period. For purposes of counting the 
number of loans made under Sec.  1041.3(e)(2), the 180-day period 
begins on the date that is 180 days prior to the consummation date 
of the loan to be made under Sec.  1041.3(e) and ends on the 
consummation date of such loan.
    3. Total number of loans made under Sec.  1041.3(e)(2). Section 
1041.3(e)(2) excludes loans from the conditional exemption in Sec.  
1041.3(e) if the loan would result in the consumer being indebted on 
more than three outstanding loans made under Sec.  1041.3(e) from 
the lender in any consecutive 180-day period. See Sec.  
1041.2(a)(17) for the definition of outstanding loan. Under Sec.  
1041.3(e)(2), the lender is required to determine from its records 
the consumer's borrowing history on alternative covered loans made 
under Sec.  1041.3(e) by the lender. The lender must use this 
information about borrowing history to determine whether the loan 
would result in the consumer being indebted on more than three 
outstanding loans made under Sec.  1041.3(e) from the lender in a 
consecutive 180-day period, determined in the manner described in 
comment 3(e)(2)-2. Section 1041.3(e) does not prevent lenders from 
making a covered loan subject to the requirements of this part.
    4. Example. For example, assume that a lender seeks to make an 
alternative loan under Sec.  1041.3(e) to a consumer and the loan 
does not qualify for the safe harbor under Sec.  1041.3(e)(4). The 
lender checks its own records and determines that during the 180 
days preceding the consummation date of the prospective loan, the 
consumer was indebted on two outstanding loans made under Sec.  
1041.3(e) from the lender. The loan, if made, would be the third 
loan made under Sec.  1041.3(e) on which the consumer would be 
indebted during the 180-day period and, therefore, would be exempt 
from this part under Sec.  1041.3(e). If, however, the lender 
determined that the consumer was indebted on three outstanding loans 
under Sec.  1041.3(e) from the lender during the 180 days preceding 
the consummation date of the prospective loan, the condition in 
Sec.  1041.3(e)(2) would not be satisfied and the loan would not be 
an alternative loan subject to the exemption under Sec.  1041.3(e) 
but would instead be a covered loan subject to the requirements of 
this part.

3(e)(3) Income Documentation Condition

    1. General. Section 1041.3(e)(3) requires lenders to maintain 
policies and procedures for documenting proof of recurring income 
and to comply with those policies and procedures when making 
alternative loans under Sec.  1041.3(e). For the purposes of Sec.  
1041.3(e)(3), lenders may establish any procedure for documenting 
recurring income that satisfies the lender's own underwriting 
obligations. For example, lenders may choose to use the procedure 
contained in the National Credit Union Administration's guidance at 
12 CFR 701.21(c)(7)(iii) on Payday Alternative Loan programs 
recommending that Federal credit unions document consumer income by 
obtaining two recent paycheck stubs.
* * * * *

Section 1041.12--Compliance Program and Record Retention

12(a) Compliance Program

    1. General. Section 1041.12(a) requires a lender making a 
covered loan to develop and follow written policies and procedures 
that are reasonably designed to ensure compliance with the 
applicable requirements in this part. These written policies and 
procedures must provide guidance to a lender's employees on how to 
comply with the requirements in this part. In particular, under 
Sec.  1041.12(a), a lender must develop and follow detailed written 
policies and procedures reasonably designed to achieve compliance, 
as applicable, with the payments requirements in Sec. Sec.  1041.8 
and 1041.9. The provisions and commentary in each section listed 
above provide guidance on what specific directions and other 
information a lender must include in its written policies and 
procedures.

12(b) Record Retention

    1. General. Section 1041.12(b) requires a lender to retain 
various categories of documentation and information concerning

[[Page 4298]]

payment practices in connection with covered loans. The items listed 
are non-exhaustive as to the records that may need to be retained as 
evidence of compliance with this part.
* * * * *

12(b)(5) Electronic Records in Tabular Format Regarding Payment 
Practices for Covered Loans

    1. Electronic records in tabular format. Section 1041.12(b)(5) 
requires a lender to retain records regarding payment practices in 
electronic, tabular format. Tabular format means a format in which 
the individual data elements comprising the record can be 
transmitted, analyzed, and processed by a computer program, such as 
a widely used spreadsheet or database program. Data formats for 
image reproductions, such as PDF, and document formats used by word 
processing programs are not tabular formats.
* * * * *

    Dated: February 6, 2019.
Kathleen L. Kraninger,
Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
[FR Doc. 2019-01906 Filed 2-11-19; 4:15 pm]
 BILLING CODE 4810-AM-P