The Consumer Finance Podcast

In this crossover episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast and Payments Pros, Jason Cover is joined by colleagues Erin Edwards, Joe DeFazio, and Dave Gettings to discuss litigation trends in earned wage access (EWA). The conversation begins with an overview of the employer-partnered and direct-to-consumer EWA models and the market's rapid growth. It then turns to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) shifting position on whether EWA is credit. The panel examines the growing wave of private litigation, including class actions and threatened mass arbitrations. It covers claims under the Truth in Lending Act, the Military Lending Act (MLA), and state lending and unfair or deceptive acts or practices laws. Many of these claims rest on the theory that EWA products are disguised loans, and some district courts have treated EWA as credit even where the consumer has no obligation to repay. They also discuss why the MLA complicates arbitration enforcement, along with the MLA's credit report safe harbor. From there, the discussion addresses bipartisan proposals in Congress to create a federal framework treating EWA as its own product category, and the open question of state preemption. The panel also covers state attorney general enforcement and the growing patchwork of EWA-specific licensing and disclosure laws. The episode closes with practical takeaways for providers and their employer partners, including building compliance programs that can absorb further CFPB shifts, developing a 50-state strategy, and watching the appellate courts and Capitol Hill. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, partner and guest host Stefanie Jackman welcomes Corafone co-founders Aman Mender and Adrian Ferrante-Bannera for a candid conversation about the growing role of AI in collections. The discussion covers the division of responsibilities between AI and human collectors, along with the considerations that can shape those boundaries, specifically addressing human oversight, escalation protocols, and ambiguous consumer requests. They also talk about the role AI-generated data can play in compliance monitoring, the potential for greater consistency from AI, and the importance of human discretion in more complex interactions. Because AI is likely to remain part of collections operations, this conversation offers financial services companies that handle collections a practical look at how to integrate it as the technology develops. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis is joined by Stephen Hayes, co-managing partner of Relman Colfax, to discuss targeted digital advertising, an unsettled area of fair lending. They examine where nonmortgage lenders stand today and under a future administration, the drift of ad models into underwriting and pricing, lessons from Fair Housing Act cases and settlements, and the potential application of disparate impact to ad delivery. They also cover the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) 2026 Reg B revisions limiting discouragement and guidance for lenders to build marketing compliance, all through a lens of unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (UDAAP) and surveillance pricing. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this crossover episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast and Payments Pros, Taylor Gess is joined by colleagues Jason Cover and Carlin McCrory for another installment of the "Point-of-Sale Finance" series. The conversation turns to the payment products that sit alongside credit at the point of sale: deposit accounts, debit cards, prepaid cards, digital wallets, and gift cards. They explain why the first step is deciding what the product actually is, since Regulation E and Regulation CC determine whether it is a prepaid account or a checking account, and they cover key deposit agreement terms, fraud and unauthorized use, fee disclosures, escheat, and ledgering. Jason and Carlin also examine hybrid prepaid credit cards under Regulation Z and the status of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's overdraft rule after the Congressional Review Act resolution.The episode also addresses Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering onboarding and identity verification, convenience fees and surcharges (including card network rules, state law caps, and the First Amendment rulings against many state surcharge laws), and the Durbin Amendment's effect on interchange and bank partner selection. It closes with how clients are entering the payments ecosystem as ISOs and PayFacs, and how deposit account data can support underwriting and repayment for new credit products.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis is joined by partners Erin Edwards, Jason Manning, and Joe DeFazio, along with special guest Matt Brooks, a partner in Troutman Pepper Locke's Bankruptcy + Restructuring practice, to talk about the resurgence of both residential and commercial foreclosures in 2026 and what it means for financial services companies.Erin kicks things off by addressing why foreclosure activity is concentrating in Rust Belt and Mid-Atlantic markets like Dayton, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. She also covers the compliance challenges of servicing across states with widely divergent procedural regimes and the looming "FHA forbearance cliff," expected to drive a surge in short sales through 2026 and 2027. Jason then walks through the private litigation risks rising alongside foreclosure volume, including anti-dual-tracking violations, single point of contact failures, and successor in interest missteps, then explains how reduced federal enforcement has shifted regulatory risk toward active state attorneys general and plaintiffs' counsel.On the commercial side, Matt details how workout dynamics differ by lender type, be it commercial banks, private credit, or CMBS servicers, against a backdrop of a multitrillion-dollar apartment loan maturity wave, rising CMBS delinquencies, and increasing bankruptcy filings, then discusses when "bad boy guarantee" carve-outs are actually getting triggered in this cycle. Joe closes by connecting the residential and commercial threads, explaining how overlapping foreclosure activity strains court systems, depresses property values, activates municipal ordinances, and creates reputational risk, and he offers practical preparation steps for lenders and servicers on both sides of the business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this special crossover episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast and Regulatory Oversight, Chris Willis, Stefanie Jackman, and Mike Yaghi discuss California Governor Gavin Newsom's appointment of former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to lead the state's newly created Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA).The group discusses Chopra's oversight of the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), his broad authority alongside the California attorney general, and what his track record of aggressive, systemic enforcement at the CFPB and FTC might mean for California's consumer financial services industry going forward. They also get into DFPI's wide-reaching supervisory and enforcement powers, what companies should be doing to get ready, and whether this move sets Chopra up for a bigger Cabinet-level role down the road in a future Democratic administration.The episode wraps up with a bigger-picture look at whether federal regulators could swing hard back toward consumer protection enforcement under a future Democratic president. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis is joined by litigation partners Massie Cooper and Kalama Lui-Kwan to unpack the rapidly evolving world of mass arbitration and the recent developments reshaping how these disputes are filed, administered, and resolved.Massie and Kalama trace mass arbitration's origins as a response to class action waivers, then break down how the major alternative dispute resolution providers have restructured their procedures to handle massive claimant volumes, from process arbitrators and sworn attestations to flat fees and global mediation options. They also walk through a fast-moving line of appellate decisions that are defining who decides fee disputes, when courts can compel arbitration to continue, and how far providers can go in consolidating claims.The conversation also turns to artificial intelligence's (AI) growing role on both sides of the table, from claimant-side tools that manage rosters and flag anomalies to provider-side AI standards and AI-assisted arbitration procedures, and the due process and verification questions that come with it. Massie and Kalama close with practical takeaways for companies, including periodically reviewing arbitration agreements, confirming provider registration requirements, and building AI verification protocols into their compliance programs. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis is joined by insurance regulatory and transactions partners Brian Casey and John Emmanuel to introduce Troutman Pepper Locke's insurance regulatory practice and explore where insurance law and consumer finance regulation intersect.Brian and John walk through the growing world of "embedded insurance," where insurance or insurance-like products (from credit life and gap waivers to service contracts and fixed indemnity health insurance policies) are bundled into noninsurance transactions like auto financing or credit cards, with creditors who usually lack the same familiarity with insurance laws that they have with consumer financial protection laws. Brian and John discuss the key compliance issues that arise in these arrangements, including unfair trade practices and anti-rebating and inducements restrictions, commission-sharing limits for unlicensed entities, proper attribution of insurance sales to state insurance department licensed parties, Gramm-Leach-Bliley privacy obligations, and the disclosure requirements tied to insurance transactions. Brian and John also share real-world examples from their practice, including structuring compliant sales incentives for embedded auto-related products and navigating the multistate complexities of group property and casualty and fixed indemnity insurance products in credit transactions.The episode underscores how the 2025 merger of Locke Lord and Troutman Pepper expanded the firm's consumer financial services capabilities to include comprehensive, 50-state insurance regulatory experience. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of the "Point-of-Sale Finance" series, Jason Cover is joined by colleagues Erin Edwards and Simon Fleischmann from Troutman Pepper Locke's Consumer Financial Services practice to shift the lens from regulatory compliance to litigation risk. The conversation broadens the frame beyond Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) to the full point-of-sale credit ecosystem (Pay in 4 products, embedded installment loans, retail installment sales contracts, and private label retail cards), explaining why litigation risk turns less on how a product is marketed and more on what the consumer saw, what they were told, and what happened when something went wrong after checkout.The episode traces the impact of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's 2024 BNPL interpretive rule and its May 2025 withdrawal, making clear that regulatory retreat does not reduce exposure. Instead, it shifts the battleground to state statutes, private plaintiffs, and existing federal law. Simon and Erin then dig into Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) litigation on both ends: the front-end permissible purpose question when a credit report is pulled at checkout, and the back-end furnishing duties triggered when payments, refunds, and disputes are reported to credit bureaus. The discussion also covers the surge in pro se litigation, autopay and fee theories emerging as class actions under Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), and the merchant-side risks around refund flows and dispute handoffs.The episode closes with a practical triage framework for managing point-of-sale litigation risk, including how to audit checkout scripts, preserve authorization and disclosure records, and structure merchant contracts to reflect operational reality — so that when a dispute arises, the evidence file is already built. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, host Chris Willis is joined by colleague Kim Phan to break down the proposed regulations recently released by the Colorado attorney general (AG) under the Automated Decision-Making Technology (ADMT) Act, Colorado's newly amended AI statute, and explain why the financial services industry needs to engage before these rules are finalized.Chris and Kim walk through several provisions that diverge sharply from what industry had hoped for after the statute's May 2026 rewrite, including a narrow definition of "financial or lending service" that leaves debt collection and insurance in uncertain territory and a meaningful human review requirement that effectively demands full judgmental re-underwriting of automated credit decisions. The hosts also highlight consumer rights provisions that would require disclosure of every data input and score used in an ADMT decision, thus creating significant trade secret exposure and fraud risk with little identifiable consumer benefit.The episode closes with the rulemaking timeline: public comments are due October 5, a hearing is scheduled for October 26, and the AG must finalize rules by January 1, 2027. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.