The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently released its Semi-Annual Report to Congress covering its activities from January to June 2026. The report describes the CFPB’s continued emphasis on deregulation, violations involving measurable consumer harm, voluntary remediation, and a shift away from reliance on novel legal theories and duplicative federal and state oversight. It highlights the CFPB’s significantly pared-down enforcement and supervisory activities while noting …
Trump Administration Issues Executive Order Targeting Housing and Mortgage Costs
On October 22, 2026, the White House issued an executive order, “Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People,” intended to reduce the costs of single-family homeownership and mortgage financing. The order instructs the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (together, the enterprises), and several other federal agencies to explore programs to proactively cancel mortgage insurance, modernize manufactured housing production, broaden alternatives …
CFPB Highlights Major Changes to Fair Lending Approach in Annual Report
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently released its annual fair lending report, covering its fair lending activities in calendar year 2025, as well as certain 2026 actions it considered particularly relevant and important. The report reflects changes to the CFPB’s fair lending program, many in response to Trump administration executive orders, to streamline its fair lending activities by focusing on “proven, intentional racial discrimination …
FinCEN Withdraws Two Crypto-Related Proposed Rules
Effective October 6, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) withdrew two proposed rules that would likely have had a significant impact on transactions related to unhosted wallets and convertible virtual currency (CVC). The first notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), initially promulgated in December 2020, would have applied verification, recordkeeping and reporting obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to …
House Bill Would Reshape CFPB Funding, Rulemaking, Supervision and Enforcement
Recently, House Republicans, led by Representative Andy Barr, introduced the Consumer Financial Protection Accountability and Reform Act of 2026 (HR 10184). The bill would make broad changes to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding, governance, rulemaking, supervision and enforcement authorities, while also adding provisions addressing select consumer finance products and CFPB data practices. Key provisions The bill proposes the following changes: 1. Change CFPB …
OCC and FDIC Jointly Propose Changes to Community Reinvestment Act Regulations
On July 31, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposed amendments to their regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a Civil Rights-era anti-redlining law. The agencies’ proposal follows a winding regulatory and litigation history to amend CRA regulations. Most recently, the agencies issued final rules amending the CRA in 2023, which subsequently were …
NYDFS Proposes Rules to Enact Buy Now, Pay Later Statute
On July 15, 2026, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued a formal notice of proposed rulemaking to implement the New York Buy-Now-Pay-Later Act (BNPLA), enacted in May 2025. The first-of-its-kind legislation to regulate buy now, pay later (BNPL) products, the BNPLA will go into effect after the adoption of NYDFS regulations. The proposed rulemaking comes on the heels of a July 2025 …
Bank Regulators Push to Roll Back Anti-Redlining Standards
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are expected to propose sweeping changes to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) in the coming weeks – reportedly without the involvement of the Federal Reserve. While not formally confirmed, the OCC and FDIC are set to release a proposal that would raise the threshold for banks subject to …
CFPB Seeks Input on Potential Reforms to Mortgage Disclosure Rules, Rescission Rights
On July 9, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a request for information (RFI) seeking public comment on proposed changes to the mortgage origination framework to improve credit availability and reduce compliance burdens for financial institutions. The RFI was issued pursuant to Executive Order 14393, “Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit” (March 13, 2026), which states that recent statutory and regulatory changes have limited access …
Agencies Propose Customer Identification Program Requirements for Stablecoin Issuers
On June 22, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), together with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), published a joint notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to implement customer identification program (CIP) requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) under the Guiding …