6.29.21
On June 24, the House of Representatives voted 218-208 along a largely party line vote to approve Senate Joint Resolution 15 (S.J. Res 15), which invokes the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) 2020 “True Lender” Rule. While SFA believes the True Lender Rule should be revised to include explicit guardrails to prohibit high-cost lending partnerships, SFA opposed Congress’ use of the CRA to address it. In meetings with members of the House of Representatives in the weeks leading up to the vote, SFA expressed our concern that the use of the CRA could lead to to unintended consequences and costly uncertainty regarding foundational aspects that national banks and the capital markets rely on to provide consumers and small businesses access to affordable, responsible credit while also removing the OCC’s full authority to address it as the CRA prohibit a regulator from issuing a substantially similar rule. Instead, we called on the OCC to expeditiously modify the rule and to have the Senate confirm a permanent Comptroller that makes this a priority. Combined with S.J. Res. 15 passage in the Senate in May, the bill now heads to President Biden who has indicated he intends to sign the bill into law.
SFA will host a discussion group to review the potential implications of the legislation on Wednesday, June 30th at 3:30pm ET.
See SFA’s letter of opposition submitted into the record by House Financial Services Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R- NC) during debate on June 24.
Read Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu’s statement in response to the House vote.