FINTECH AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
FINTECH ANDCONSUMER PROTECTION:WhA SnapshotMarch 2019ByLauren SaundersNational Consumer Law Center
Copyright 2019, National Consumer Law Center, Inc. All rights reserved.ABOUT THE AUTHORLauren Saunders is Associate Director at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and manages theWashington, DC office, where she directs NCLC’s federal legislative and regulatory work. Lauren is a recognizedexpert in various areas, including small dollar loans, fintech, prepaid cards, credit cards, bank accounts, andconsumer protection regulation. She is the lead author of Consumer Banking and Payments Law, contributes to otherNCLC treatises, and has authored several reports and white papers. She previously directed the Federal RightsProject of the National Senior Citizens Law Center; was Deputy Director of Litigation at Bet Tzedek Legal Services;and was an associate at Hall & Phillips. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and was anExecutive Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s KennedySchool of Government and a B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from Stanford University.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSSpecial thanks to NCLC colleagues John Van Alst, Michael Best, Carolyn Carter, Alys Cohen, Joanna Darcus,April Kuehnhoff, Andrew Pizor, John Rao, Odette Williamson, and Chi Chi Wu as well as Christina Tetreault atConsumer Reports for their input. The author would also like to thank Jan Kruse for editorial assistance and AnnaKowanko for layout assistance.ABOUT THE NATIONAL CONSUMER LAW CENTERSince 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center (NCLC ) has used its expertisein consumer law and energy policy to work for consumer justice and economic security forlow-income and other disadvantaged people, including older adults, in the United States.NCLC’s expertise includes policy analysis and advocacy; consumer law and energypublications; litigation; expert witness services, and training and advice for advocates. NCLCworks with nonprofit and legal services organizations, private attorneys, policymakers, andfederal and state government and courts across the nation to stop exploitive practices, to helpfinancially stressed families build and retain wealth, and advance economic fairness.www.nclc.org
TABLE OF CONTENTSEXECUTIVE SUMMARY . 2FINTECH ISSUES IMPACTING MULTIPLE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES . 51. Alternative Data and Models: Big Data, New Algorithms, Machine Learning .52. Data Aggregators.63. Fintech “Sandboxes”.7CREDIT, CREDIT-RELATED, AND CREDIT-LIKE PRODUCTS . 94. Credit Reporting and Cash Flow Underwriting.95. Online Lending .106. Early Wage Access.117. Student Loans .128. Auto Loans .139. Real Estate Lending .1410. Alternative Home Finance Products .1511. Loan Servicing, Debt Collection, and Debt Settlement .16DEPOSITS, PAYMENTS, AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT . 1712. Personal Financial Management and Overdraft Protection .1713. Mobile Deposit Accounts and “Neo-Banks”.1714. Faster Electronic Payments and P2P Services .1915. Virtual Currencies, Blockchain, and “Smart Contracts” .20CONCLUSION. 21ENDNOTES . 22
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe use of technology in financial products and services (fintech) is resulting in a wide array of newapproaches to financial products and services. The internet, mobile devices, big data, computeralgorithms, and other technologies are impacting the way we borrow, make payments, and manageour money. These technologies are also changing the way that entities from credit reporting agencies todebt collectors affect and interact with us.Fintech products and services have the potential to provide important benefits to consumers. Theypromise to lower costs, promote financial inclusion, help people avoid fees and comparison shop,improve personal financial management, and build assets and wealth.But innovation and fintech approaches are not invariably positive. New products may have hidden orunintended negative consequences, or risks that are not obvious at first. The dangerous pick-apayment and exploding adjustable rate mortgages that fueled the foreclosure crisis leading to the GreatRecession of 2008 were innovations. New technology enabled banks to encourage overdraft fees ondebit cards that can turn a 5 cup of coffee into a 40 one.The dangerous pick-a-paymentand exploding adjustable ratemortgages that fueled theforeclosure crisis leading to theGreat Recession of 2008 wereinnovations. New technologyenabled banks to encourageoverdraft fees on debit cardsthat can turn a 5 cup of coffeeinto a 40 one.The fintech label also does not necessarily mean that much is different.Products and services are constantly evolving, but sometimes the morethings change the more they stay the same. Old problems can arise in a newpackage, and promised benefits of fintech products may not actuallymaterialize.The allure of shiny fintech products must not lead us into waivingconsumer protection rules or oversight of untested products. Just because aproduct uses new technology does not mean that older protections do notor should not apply or that regulators do not know how to approach aproduct. It is crucial to look at fintech products carefully and critically, tounderstand the risks, and not to accept unproven hype about benefits toconsumers.The array of approaches that fall under the fintech rubric is vast. This report provides a snapshot ofsome of the developments, potential promise, and potential concerns in several areas:Fintech issues impacting multiple products:1. Alternative Data and Models: Big Data, New Algorithms, Machine Learning2. Data Aggregators3. Fintech “Sandboxes”Credit, Credit-Related, and Credit-Like products:4. Credit Reporting and Cash flow Underwriting5. Online Lending6. Early Wage Access7. Student Loans8. Auto Loans9. Real Estate Lending 2019, National Consumer Law Center2Fintech and Consumer Protection
10. Shared Appreciation Home Finance Products11. Loan Servicing, Debt Collection, and Debt SettlementDeposits, Payments, and Financial Management12. Personal Financial Management and Overdraft Protection13. Mobile Deposit Accounts and “Neo-banks”14. Faster Electronic Payments and P2P Services15. Virtual Currencies, Blockchain and “Smart Contracts”The listing of potential benefits and concerns in this report does not mean that those benefits orconcerns will actually materialize. Potential benefits are listed if they are touted by companies, but thesebenefits have not always been proven. Similarly, while some concerns are already evident, others aremerely things to watch out for. Some benefits or concerns may apply to some companies but notothers.While the issues raised by fintech products are as myriad as the products themselves, some commonthemes, issues, and risks span many fintech products.Common Potential Benefits Better, faster, cheaper. Automation and new technologies promise to reduce both costs and prices,speed up delivery, increase convenience, and improve the customer experience. Fixing old problems as a market opportunity. From overdraft fees to high-cost loans to creditinvisibility to loan servicing, new entrants to the financial services market promise to use theproblems and failures of existing markets as a blueprint to redesign products and services they hopewill do better by consumers. Personalization. Use of personalized data, real time information and feedback, and automatedcustomer interaction tools promise to help providers design products and services around theindividual consumer. Access for underserved consumers. Re-tooled underwriting tools, the widespread use ofsmartphones even in low income communities, and other developments promise to increasefinancial inclusion and bring mainstream pricing to underserved communities.Common Concerns and Potential Problems Old wine in new bottles; same old problems in a new form. Manyfintech products are just variations on older financial products andservices. A loan is still a loan. A deposit account is a deposit account. Anelectronic payment is a payment. It wasn’t so long ago that just having awebsite and offering a product on the internet or by sending emails wasconsidered innovative. Lack of transparency about the costs and business model. Fintechproducts often appear free or very low cost but may not be. It shouldalways be a red flag if it isn’t clear what a product or service costs, or howit is paid for and by whom. Sometimes the costs are hidden or are notrevealed until after a consumer begins the sign-up process, andsometimes the cost is not in dollars but in the use, sharing or selling of theconsumer’s personal information.Fintech and Consumer Protection3It should always be a red flag if itisn’t clear what a product orservice costs, or how it is paidfor and by whom. Sometimesthe costs are hidden or are notrevealed until after a consumerbegins the sign-up process, andsometimes the cost is not indollars but in the use, sharing orselling of the consumer’spersonal information. 2019, National Consumer Law Center
Disparate impacts and the perils of big data, privacy, and security. Fintechs rely heavily onconsumer data. How that data is used, whether it results in unequal treatment of different groups, towhom the data is disclosed and sold, and whether sensitive information is held in a secure fashionare challenges for any company, and especially for start-ups that do not have robust complianceregimes or deep experience. Privacy policies are so opaque as to be useless and consumers cannotknow if a company has strong data security. Many fintech products rely on access to consumers’bank accounts or other transaction accounts, increasing these concerns. Avoidance of consumer protection laws. Some fintech products are designed to avoid consumerprotection laws while others claim that existing rules do not apply to them. Nonbank lenders oftenpartner with banks to avoid state interest rate limits. Products that claim not to be a loan may bedesigned to avoid credit laws. Companies that collect and distribute information about consumersmay not follow the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Some regulators are rushing to exempt new productsfrom consumer protection laws through regulatory “sandboxes.” Fast and easy can cause problems. Fast and easy credit can be fast and easy debt. Faster accountapplications or faster payments can mean faster fraud or identity theft. Slick mobile apps can glossover how a product actually works. No humans, no records, and lack of customer service when things go wrong. Fintech productsinvariably rely on mobile and internet interfaces and electronic communications. But if somethinggoes wrong or you need a person to explain something, customer service may be difficult orimpossible to reach. Interactions that take place entirely on a mobile device have no paper record ofthe agreement or paper statements to call attention to fees and charges. This may leave consumerswith little information on what they have agreed to or what they end up paying. Forced arbitration weakens accountability for wrongdoers. Forced arbitration clauses, buried in thefine print of contracts, take away consumers’ day in court and their ability to band together withother injured consumers when companies violate the law. Forced arbitration clauses are a problem inproducts old and new, but they are especially widespread in fintech products.1Highlighting these problems and others is not intended to take away from the real promise of manyfintech products. But it is essential that policymakers, regulators, and consumers keep their eyes wideopen and expend the effort to dig deep to understand fintech products and services. A desire topromote innovation must not blind us to the potential risks and the need for consumer protection rulesand oversight that are especially needed for untested new products and services. 2019, National Consumer Law Center4Fintech and Consumer Protection
FINTECH ISSUES IMPACTING MULTIPLE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES1. Alternative Data and Models: Big Data, New Algorithms, Machine LearningWhat’s happening? Consumer financial products and services are impacted by the use of more andnew sources of data about consumers, massive increases in computing power, and new methods toanalyze huge amounts of data, such as machine learning and new algorithms. The use of data impactsthe marketing, pricing, delivery, and implementation of almost every product.The promise: Streamlined applications and improved underwriting. New uses of data could eliminate the needfor cumbersome paper- and records-based loan applications, improve the evaluation of borrowers’ability to repay loans, and enhance access for underserved consumers. Better fraud detection and identity verification. Better use of data can help keep fraud out offinancial systems and limit identity theft in online services. Faster, more personalized service. Companies use data to target and personalize communications,products and services.Concerns: Disparate impacts on disadvantaged communities. Many data elements, alone or in combinationwith each other, correlate with race, ethnicity, and other protected class characteristics, potentiallyleading to discrimination and disparate impacts.2 Use of such data in lending decisions willimplicate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). Same problems in a new package. A recent study found that digitalmortgages resulted in higher prices to equally qualified borrowers ofcolor in the same manner as human underwriting does.3 The poor pay more. Data can be used to analyze price sensitivity andpropensity to comparison shop, leading to higher prices for lesssophisticated consumers, those with more limited internet access, andthose with fewer options.Many data elements, alone orin combination with eachother, correlate with race,ethnicity, and other protectedclass characteristics,potentially leading todiscrimination and disparateimpacts. Lack of transparency. It is impossible for consumers – and increasingly,even the designers of artificial intelligence or machine learning systems –to know what is in the “black box” of data and computer algorithms thatshape how decisions about people on issues ranging from credit applications to pricing arebeing made.4 Errors, inaccuracies, and inability to correct them. Data could be attributed to the wrong consumeror be otherwise erroneous. The conclusions of computer algorithms could be off base. One NationalConsumer Law Center (NCLC) study found that assessments such as income and education levelpredictions from several big data companies were often grossly inaccurate.5 Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and other consumer laws. The FCRA limits the uses to whichinformation bearing on a consumer may be used; gives consumers important rights to know whatinformation is being used and when it impacts them adversely; and provides rights, duties andprocedures to correct errors. In some circumstances, the protections of the FCRA apply to uses of bigdata, but many big data companies do not appear to comply. The definitions in the FCRA are verybroad, and cover many types of data if used for decisions about credit, employment, insurance, andFintech and Consumer Protection5 2019, National Consumer Law Center
many other uses. Whether or not the FCRA itself applies, the rights and duties it confers areimportant for many uses of data. Privacy. Consumers often have no control over use of their data, especially if the database companybelieves it is not subject to existing laws such as the FCRA or the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act. Evenwhen consumers do need to provide permission, the data may be collected for one purpose but thenused or sold for other purposes or in ways that the consumer never understood or would haveconsented to. Alternative data with adverse consequences. Use of alternate data can harm consumers andundermine programs intended to help them. For example, some are urging gas and electric utilitiesto submit “full file” reports to the credit bureaus on a monthly basis, not merely seriously delinquentaccounts. But millions of consumers, including fragile seniors, fall briefly behind when faced withlarge winter or summer bills. Full-file reporting could interfere with state policies against winterdisconnections and could harm the credit scores of millions.6See also the next section on Data Aggregators and also the section on Credit Reporting and Cash flowUnderwriting on page 9.2. Data AggregatorsWhat’s happening? Many of the services described in this report, including credit reporting, cash flowunderwriting, savings tools, personal financial management apps, and P2P services are made possiblethrough the use of a data aggregator to access transaction information from, or to verify, consumers’bank accounts and sometimes other financial accounts. Companies such as Finicity, Plaid and Yodleeare not consumer-facing but are used by fintech companies to funnel the information from consumers’financial accounts to the fintechs.The promise: Right to access your own data. Data aggregators give consumers a way to consolidate and makebetter use of their own bank, credit card, investment, and other transaction account information. Multitude of new uses of data to improve services. The services described in this report are just asmall snapshot of the fast growing uses of consumer financial transaction information to offer new,improved, and re-imagined products and services that promise many benefits for consumers. Faster account verification. Data aggregators can verify an account that is being linked for paymentor savings purposes more quickly than using micro deposits and waiting a day or more. Competition for banks. Consumers can be a captive audience for banks, which have an edge overcompetitors due to the information they hold on consumers. Data aggregators enable fintechs tore
Feb 13, 2019 · Lauren Saunders is Associate Director at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and manages the Washington, DC office, where she directs NCLC’s federal legislative and regulatory work. Lauren is a recognized expert in various areas, including small dollar loans,
FinTech waves – Italian FinTech Ecosystem 2020 2 Research goals and methods 3 Executive summary 5 Update post COVID-19 8 1 Financial services trend 10 Global trends 11 Europe trends 13 Italian trends 16 2 The FinTech market 26 FinTech environment 27 Global trends 29 Europe trends 39 Italian trends 45 3 Italian FinTech ecosystem 53 4 The investor
FinTech and the Automotive Industry There are many synergies between FinTech and the automotive industry Highly regulated industries Focused on promoting consumer/user experience Data is critical to all aspects of the industry FinTech - Changing the Game Automotive industry now embracing FinTech, propelled by:
Overall fintech investment Inclusive fintech investment Inclusive Fintech 50 applicants 4 inclusivefintech.com Fintech investment is booming. In 2018, a record USD 111.8 billion1 was invested in fintech, and the sector garnered extensive media coverage2 and interest.3 But despite fintech's growing profile—and even though it can help unlock trillions of dollars in value4 by reaching
helpful baseline for the independent Review into UK FinTech, as announced in HM Treasury’s Spring 2020 Budget. Catherine McGuinness Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee, City of London 2 UK FinTech: Moving mountains and moving mainstream UK FinTech: Moving mountains and moving mainstream 3
sector. Nigeria is now home to over 200 fintech standalone companies, plus a number of fintech solutions offered by banks and mobile network operators as part of their product portfolio. Between 2014 and 2019, Nigeria's bustling fintech scene raised more than 600 million in funding, attracting 25 percent ( 122 million)
Only a few paper examines the expansion of Fintech lending to small businesses.Gopal and Schnabl(2020) find that finance companies and Fintech lenders substitute banks in small business lending market after the Global Financial Crisis, while Balyuk et al.(2020) document the differential effects of banking lending on Fintech growth
Only a few paper examines the expansion of FinTech lending to small businesses.Gopal and Schnabl(2020) find that finance companies and FinTech lenders substitute banks in small business lending market after the Global Financial Crisis, whileBalyuk et al.(2020) document the differential effects of banking lending on FinTech
investment in fintech in the USA, Europe and Asia for 2014-2016. Тable 1. Investment in FinTech, 2014-2016 bln.US (KPMG, 2016). Region 2014 2015 2016 USA 14.1 27.4 13.5 Europe 12.0 10.9 2.2 Asia 3.3 8.4 8.6 As can be seen from Table 1, the total volume of investment in fintech in these regions was 46.7 billion in 2015.
