CFPB Wants To Supervise International Money Transfer Operations

(Consumerist)

In Oct. 2013, new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau kicked in that provided new disclosures and protections for people making international money transfers. While the CFPB has the ability to check in with the nation’s largest banks and credit unions to make sure they are complying with these new rules, it doesn’t yet have that authority for non-bank companies that offer this service.

So today the CFPB proposed a rule that would allow the Bureau to supervise non-bank money transfer operations that make more than 1 million international money transfers annually. The Bureau figures this would put the country’s 25 largest non-bank money transfer providers within its supervisory scope.

The Remittance Rule, part of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, expanded the scope of the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to add new protections to international money transfers.

These protections include disclosures about exchange rates, fees, and taxes, the right to cancel a transfer within 30 minutes, information about when the transferred money will be available on the other end, and a 90-day limit on dispute resolutions.

“The CFPB’s Remittance Rule provides strong consumer protections like better disclosures and the correction of errors,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a statement. “Today’s proposed rule would help us provide oversight across the entire market so consumers get the protections they deserve.”

Though the CFPB’s is proposing that it has the right to supervise the largest non-bank transfer providers, the Remittance Rule applies to most companies that make at least 100 transfers each year.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist