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The Trump administration is delaying — and considering dismantling — two new rules that were a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s crackdown on predatory for-profit colleges, the New York Times reported today. The announcement by the Education Department yesterday throws into limbo changes that would speed up and expand a system for erasing the federal loan debt of student borrowers who were cheated by colleges that acted fraudulently. It also freezes the implementation of key parts of what is known as the gainful employment mandate, which cuts off loans to colleges if their graduates do not earn enough money to pay off their student debt. The move came just over two weeks before the rules were to take effect on July 1. The agency said that it would form new rule-making committees to study the regulations and would hold off on implementing them until the review was completed.

Top lobbying groups for the financial industry are pushing back against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the regulator ratchets up pressure on credit products that can lure in customers with zero-interest terms but later surprise them with high charges, the National Law Journal reported today. Earlier this month, on the same day CFPB Director Richard Cordray announced that he had sent letters to top credit card companies urging them to adopt more transparent practices, leading trade groups including the American Bankers Association and Consumer Bankers Association defended so-called “deferred interest” products. Commonly offered on store-brand credit cards, deferred interest terms allow consumers to make big-ticket purchases and avoid paying interest so long as the balance is paid off before the promotional period ends. If a balance remains after that period — typically six months to a year — consumers can be hit with high interest charges that are retroactive to the date of the initial purchase on the card. The American Bankers Association and Consumer Bankers Association disputed the notion that deferred interest products confuse consumers. For instance, the Consumer Bankers Association and Financial Services Roundtable said “high ‘payoff rates’” show that consumers understand how deferred interest products work. The groups argued that no additional regulatory action is warranted for deferred interest products.

The Trump administration called for the neutering of many of the central provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act as it offered its most detailed plans to date for the unraveling of the financial regulations put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, the New York Times reported today. In a report released yesterday, the Treasury Department said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be substantially stripped of its powers, accusing the agency of regulatory overreach and saying the president should be able to remove its director. It also recommended greater exemptions from the so-called Volcker Rule, which bans banks from trading for their own gain, and it called for rules to be revised to give small community banks relief from regulatory scrutiny such as stress tests.

In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that someone who purchases a defaulted debt is not a “debt collector” and is therefore not subject to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), according to a special analysis from ABI’s Bill Rochelle. The case, Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., was argued on April 18, the second day Justice Gorsuch sat on the bench after being sworn in the week before as the high court’s 113th justice. Santander had purchased a portfolio of defaulted auto loans from a bank. The district court and the Fourth Circuit both held that Santander was not a “debt collector” and thus not subject to the regulations and remedies afforded to consumers under the FDCPA. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split because other circuits had held that purchasing debt did not give a debt collector immunity from the FDCPA.

The Trump administration will recommend limits on the U.S. consumer-finance regulator and a reassessment of a broad range of banking rules in a report to be released as early as today, the Wall Street Journal reported. The report from the Treasury Department, drafted in response to a February executive order from President Donald Trump, is less sweeping than financial legislation approved by the House of Representatives last week, these people said. That suggests the administration is taking a more pragmatic path than some Republicans who want to throw out Obama-era financial rules wholesale, although administration officials are still seeking to loosen regulatory restrictions on banks in significant ways. The report is around 150 pages and makes recommendations on policy goals, without laying out a specific process for achieving them. It is harshly critical of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and recommends that the bureau be stripped of its authority to examine financial institutions. By law, the bureau has the authority to enforce consumer laws as well as to examine individual firms on a continuing basis.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said yesterday that he’s considering seeking contempt of Congress charges against the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), The Hill reported. Hensarling said that CFPB Director Richard Cordray has refused to turn over documents his panel requested for its investigation into Wells Fargo’s sales practices. A report from the Financial Services Committee’s Republican staff released on Tuesday argued that Cordray’s refusal was grounds to pursue contempt of Congress charges. The CFPB fined Wells Fargo $100 million in September 2016 for opening and charging fees for more than 2 million bank and credit accounts for customers without their authorization. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the City of Los Angeles were also involved in the investigation of practices first revealed by the Los Angeles Times in 2013. GOP lawmakers on the panel have argued that Cordray and the CFPB were “asleep at the wheel” and jumped into the investigation late to take credit.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said that it has sent letters to major retail credit card companies to reconsider a pricing method some of them are using because it may “lack transparency to consumers,” MarketWatch.com reported yesterday. The CFPB also said consumers can file complaints about credit cards to the Bureau online. “Deferred interest” means they offer no interest for a set period of time, as long as the balance is paid in full by the end of that promotional period. For consumers who are able to pay that balance off, a deferred-interest card can then be a viable option. The problem, the bureau said: Many consumers do not realize they will be charged interest retroactively on all the purchase made during the promotional period if they do not pay the balance in full. And it may not be clear from reading the cards’ terms that this is the case.

A federal judge on June 2 blocked Ocwen Financial Corp.’s bid to test the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the early stage of a closely watched enforcement case (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Ocwen Fin. Corp. , S.D. Fla., 17-cv-80495, 6/2/17), Bloomberg BNA reported yesterday. The ruling by Judge Kenneth Marra of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida allows the CFPB to proceed unimpeded with its April lawsuit alleging that Ocwen violated consumer protection laws in servicing loans of distressed borrowers. Ocwen sought an early case conference on the constitutional question, saying that it should be settled before allowing the CFPB to go further. Judge Marra disagreed, saying that would depart from settled procedural rules and might delay the case. He said Ocwen may still make its constitutional attack on a motion to dismiss. Marra also declined Ocwen’s request to seek U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ views on the CFPB’s constitutionality. In a separate order June 2, Judge Marra also said that it’s “premature” to invite the Attorney General’s views at this point.