The Consumer Finance Podcast

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.

In this crossover edition of The Consumer Finance Podcast and Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Chris Willis, Brooke Conkle, and Chris Capurso break down the FTC's policy statement abandoning disparate impact enforcement under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act. The group traces the reversal to two key drivers — a reassessment of the FTC's statutory authority and President Trump's executive order directing agencies to deprioritize disparate impact liability — while placing the move in the broader context of similar rollbacks at the CFPB and federal banking regulators. They also examine what remaining exposure looks like at the state level, particularly in New York and New Jersey, and close with a clear message for compliance officers: fair lending is far from dead, the current federal retreat is best understood as a vacation rather than a permanent reprieve, and paying close attention to regulatory signals now can be a meaningful competitive advantage down the road. 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 colleagues Stefanie Jackman and Brian Hays to discuss the Seventh Circuit's landmark July 2026 ruling in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, a unanimous decision holding that text messages do not qualify as "telephone calls" under § 227(c)(5) of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), eliminating a private right of action for National Do Not Call Registry violations based solely on text message communications. The trio unpacks the court's textualist reasoning, which anchored the definition of "telephone call" to the plain meaning of the term at the time of the TCPA's 1991 enactment — when a telephone was understood as an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance, and the first text message had not yet been sent. They also examine how Steidinger relates to the Ninth Circuit's earlier decision in Howard, which reached the opposite conclusion under a different TCPA subsection, and whether a genuine circuit split now exists that the Supreme Court will be compelled to resolve. The conversation then turns to practical implications for litigators and compliance teams. Brian walks through how defense counsel should be leveraging Steidinger in pending cases within and outside the Seventh Circuit, what to expect from plaintiffs pivoting to state telemarketing statutes and state attorney general enforcement actions, and how class definitions are likely to shift. Stefanie delivers a clear compliance message: Steidinger is not a green light to abandon text message compliance controls. Section 227(b) liability, FCC enforcement authority, and a growing patchwork of state laws remain fully intact, and consent remains the most important risk management tool available. The episode closes with broader context on how Steidinger fits into the post-Loper Bright and post-McLaughlin era of TCPA jurisprudence, in which courts are increasingly willing to reject long-standing FCC interpretations and reexamine foundational assumptions about the statute's scope. 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 Moving the Metal, Jason Cover is joined by colleagues Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso from Troutman Pepper Locke's Consumer Financial Services practice to tackle a topic that has been notably absent from the point-of-sale finance series until now — auto finance. As the largest point-of-sale purchase most consumers will ever make, auto finance comes with a distinct set of structural, regulatory, and litigation risks that set it apart from other point-of-sale products like home improvement or medical financing. The conversation begins with the structural mechanics of retail installment sales contracts, explaining why auto finance is dominated by dealer-originated paper assigned to finance companies rather than direct lending, and what that means for compliance and liability. Chris walks through the complexities of vehicle titling and lien perfection across a 50-state patchwork of DMV laws — including the added wrinkles that arise in the refinance context — while Brooke unpacks the litigation risks that follow when those processes go wrong, from repossession claims and bankruptcy lien avoidance to class actions rooted in the FTC Holder Rule. The episode also covers evergreen underwriting and origination risks including ECOA adverse action obligations, yo-yo financing claims, and add-on product exposure, as well as the FTC's recent price advertising guidance and how state attorneys general are stepping into the enforcement void left by federal regulators. The episode closes with practical advice for point-of-sale finance companies considering entering the auto space. 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 sits down with Partners Joseph DeFazio and Joseph Froehlich to discuss the New Jersey Supreme Court's ruling in Diana, a unanimous ruling and long-awaited victory for debt buyers operating in New Jersey. At the center of the conversation is a high-volume litigation campaign waged by the Kim Law Firm, which targeted the chain of title for consumer debts under the New Jersey Consumer Finance Licensing Act (NJCFLA). Kim's core theory argued that any consumer debt under $50,000 — including personal loans, auto loans, and retail credit — that was ever touched, transferred, or assigned by an unlicensed entity is void and unenforceable as a matter of law, and that any attempt to collect on such a debt independently triggers statutory liability. The trio walks through how that theory played out across dozens of lower court decisions, appellate losses, a Third Circuit ruling, and ultimately, the New Jersey Supreme Court's definitive holding that no private right of action exists under the NJCFLA. Despite the favorable ruling in Diana for debt buyers, the threat of litigation has not disappeared. Kim has signaled an intent to pivot rather than retreat, leveraging the ruling's unresolved questions to pursue claims under the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Tune in to this episode to hear about post-Diana implications and critical issues that remain for debt buyers following the decision. 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 Hiring to Firing, hosts Taylor Gess, Tracey Diamond, and Emily Schifter map out obligations hiding in plain sight for multistate financial services employers. The conversation covers crafting a legally defensible employee handbook, pay transparency complexities, and wage and hour classification risks. Together, they deliver guidance for banks, fintechs, lenders, and card issuers operating across state lines, in addition to addressing the thorny intersection of earned wage access, remote workers, and the rapidly evolving assortment of AI hiring laws. It is the episode every financial services employer should hear before their next hire, expansion, or employment compliance review. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.