Is California's Agent Of A Payee Exemption Shrinking?

Earlier this year, the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) issued a draft rulemaking relating to the scope of the agent of a payee exemption (the “Exemption”) under the Money Transmission Act, Cal. Fin. Code § 2000 et seq. (MTA). As we observed at the time, the rulemaking affirms a broader interpretation of the scope of the Exemption than has been historically applied. However, a new interpretive opinion from the DBO appears to potentially narrow how the Exemption applies to payment processors that facilitate payments on behalf of consumer-facing merchants. This interpretation, if more widely applied, could risk undermining well-established compliance approaches for companies that provide payment processing services.