Consumer Financial Services

Steptoe's Financial Innovation and Regulation (FIR) group includes a Consumer Financial Services regulatory and transactional team that offers clients authoritative insight into the business, technology, and policy trends shaping the consumer financial services market today. Our ranks include former regulators (including from the CFPB), senior in-house lawyers, congressional staffers, and industry trade association leaders. Together, we advise clients from concept to launch and beyond on structuring, building and protecting their go-to-market programs, products, and services.

The FIR Consumer Financial Services team is part of Steptoe's broader Consumer Financial Services practice, which includes enforcement and litigation teams and enjoys wide-spread market and peer recognition for its work at the individual lawyer and practice levels in (among others) Chambers USA, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, and Best Lawyers. Members of the practice are sought after to chair prominent programs and by media, peers, and industry to write, speak, and comment on major trends and developments.

Our Clients

We help clients develop and deliver consumer and small business finance products and services for an increasingly technology-forward market. Among others, we represent:

• Consumer finance companies
• Retail banks
• Tech-enabled nonbanks
• Fintech providers
• Banking-as-a-service platforms
• E-commerce and digital platforms
• Companies across retail and other industries

Product and Regulatory Support

Innovating in a fragmented regulatory environment with overlapping state and federal oversight and constantly shifting rules on credit regulation requires understanding — and meeting — significant regulatory, compliance, operational, and commercial challenges. Our lawyers act as outside product counsel to offer practical and efficient solutions to resolve complex regulatory questions and help clients reach their business goals.

We provide regulatory compliance counseling in connection with a wide range of products and services, including: all forms of consumer and small business credit (credit cards, loans, BNPL, retail installment sales); alternative financing products; electronic fund transfers and deposits; credit reporting; loan servicing; debt collection; and payment processing. We regularly advise on legal issues involving: the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B; the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E; the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Regulation V; unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices (UDAP and UDAAP); federal preemption; privacy; anti-money laundering and the Bank Secrecy Act; economic sanctions compliance; and state laws governing licensing, registration, and money transmission. We also advise on network compliance, including NACHA and the card network rules. Clients routinely engage us to build and enhance compliance management systems and third-party oversight programs that meet regulatory expectations.

Structuring Transactions, Partnerships, and Commercial Arrangements

We work with parties on all sides to facilitate, structure, and negotiate key commercial partnerships and arrangements in the consumer financial services industry. Our work involves credit, payments, credit card and banking services solutions, and includes bank and nonbank partnerships, banking-as-a-service and third-party servicing agreements, and co-branded card affiliations. 

We negotiate and draft transactional documents as lead counsel for banks and fintechs, including loan documents, debt financings, structured notes, and receivables purchases. Our experience includes negotiating program agreements, merchant acquiror and merchant processing agreements, agreements between issuing banks and their co-brand or private label card partners, and other agreements between banks and program managers or between program managers and other third parties. We also represent credit and payments clients on customer-facing end user agreements.

Supervisory and Oversight Support

The dual — and often dueling — state and federal regulatory frameworks overlaying the consumer finance market create heightened oversight and compliance risks, especially for companies pioneering at the leading edge of the market, where technology often outpaces the law. We advise clients on supervisory, oversight, and risk management issues, and support them in preparing for and managing audits, examinations, and related inquiries by agencies including the CFPB, the OCC, the FDIC, the FTC, and HUD, as well as state agencies such as the California DFPI and the New York DFS, and state attorneys general.

Shaping a Shifting Market 

Our lawyers offer a comprehensive understanding of the policies and priorities of many and varied state and federal agencies regulating and overseeing the consumer financial services market. Working together with our commercial litigators, and our investigations and enforcement lawyers, we can identify current enforcement priorities that may predict future regulatory changes, giving clients the ability to adapt their programs and business models proactively before rulemaking occurs. We also keep our clients informed on the regulatory trends impacting the consumer finance industry, and help them influence the direction of regulation through formal legislative and regulatory rulemaking channels, as well as informal feedback and discussions with regulators and oversight agencies.