Trade Group Sues CFPB Over Small Business Loan Data Collection Rules

The RBFC has filed a lawsuit against the CFPB over its data collection rules that are scheduled to go into effect this year.

As readers may recall, the federal regulator created 888 pages of rules governing how small business lenders (including MCA companies) will be required to collect and submit data for federal analysis.

At first, it appeared that the CFPB had way overstepped its bounds when Congress, on a bi-partisan basis, passed a resolution to scrap the rules. President Biden, however, then took the unprecedented step of vetoing their resolution on his belief that the rules were necessary to “conduct oversight of abusive and predatory lenders.”

One week after the veto the RBFC filed its lawsuit.

Although the CFPB is required by law to collect small business loan data pursuant to Section 1071 of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the plaintiff took umbrage with the CFPB’s allegedly deliberate misinterpretation of the words “credit” and “loan” as they’re written in that statute. That’s because the CFPB unilaterally decided those terms also apply to MCAs/Sales-Based-Financing agreements. The RBFC contests that the CFPB has the legal authority to include products outside the scope of the federal statute and asks the Court to declare the rules invalid as they apply to sales-based financing.

You can read the full lawsuit here.