The CFPB & UDAAP: A "Know It When You See It" Standard? 2015 Mid-Year Update

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) exercise of its sweeping authority to prohibit unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices (UDAAP)¹ continues to command the attention of financial institutions and financial services companies regulated by the agency. As promised by CFPB Director Richard Cordray,² the CFPB has defined UDAAP primarily through enforcement actions, along with a few agency-issued supervisory findings and guidance bulletins.

To assist regulated and potentially regulated entities in understanding how the CFPB will exercise its UDAAP authority, we issued our "Know It When You See It" Client Alert in June 2014 as well as an updated Client Alert in January 2015. Those Alerts included a chart listing the specific acts and practices that the CFPB has alleged and/or identified as unfair, deceptive, and/or abusive from its inception to the end of 2014 based on the following sources: