Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection May 22, 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) is amending its regulation which implements the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and the official interpretation to the regulation. This final rule (the 2013 Final Rule) modifies the final rules issued by the Bureau in February, July, and August 2012 (collectively the 2012 Final Rule) that implement section 1073 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act regarding remittance transfers. The amendments address three specific issues. First, the 2013 Final Rule modifies the 2012 Final Rule to make optional, in certain circumstances, the requirement to disclose fees imposed by a designated recipient's institution. Second and relatedly, the 2013 Final Rule also makes optional the requirement to disclose taxes collected by a person other than the remittance transfer provider. In place of these two former requirements, the 2013 Final Rule requires disclaimers to be added to the rule's disclosures indicating that the recipient may receive less than the disclosed total due to the fees and taxes for which disclosure is now optional. Finally, the 2013 Final Rule revises the error resolution provisions that apply when a remittance transfer is not delivered to a designated recipient because the sender provided incorrect or insufficient information, and, in particular, when a sender provides an incorrect account number or recipient institution identifier that results in the transferred funds being deposited in the wrong account.