PROPOSED LEGISLATION ON ISSUING UNFAIR AND DECEPTIVE PRACTICES RULES

The House Committee on Financial Services recently introduced proposed legislation - H.R. 3526 sponsored by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) - that would enable all banking agencies to write rules governing unfair and deceptive practices pursuant to the Federal Trade Commission Act.  Currently, only the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration had this rulemaking authority.  The proposed bill would now allow the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to also issue rules regarding unfair and deceptive practices for those institutions that they each oversee.

While some would argue that the proposed legislation is advantageous because it creates more protections for consumers - for example, credit card practices at national banks overseen by the OCC can be regulated to prevent unfair and deceptive practices - opponents of the bill argue that it would deprive the Federal Reserve of its industrywide authority.

A copy of the full text of the bill can be found here. LINK