Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Finalizes Rule on Federal Oversight of Popular Digital Payment Apps to Protect Personal Data, Reduce Fraud, and Stop Illegal “Debanking”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule to supervise the largest nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps. The rule will help the CFPB to ensure that these companies—specifically those handling more than 50 million transactions per year—follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions already supervised by the CFPB. The CFPB estimates that the most widely used apps covered by the rule collectively process over 13 billion consumer payment transactions annually. The final rule will enable to the CFPB to supervise companies in key areas including:

• Privacy and surveillance
• Errors and fraud
• Debanking