On July 21, 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it has further expanded its Consumer Complaint Database (“Database”) to include additional types of financial products. Specifically, the CFPB will now accept consumer complaints about prepaid cards and nonbank products, such as debt settlement and credit repair services.

BACKGROUND AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS -

As we recently reported, the CFPB has proposed to include in the Database the unstructured and unvalidated personal narratives of consumers who choose to opt in. The CFPB has been accepting complaints since July of 2011, and began publishing complaints about credit cards in the Database in June of 2012. The Database has been expanded over the years to include additional financial products, such as mortgages, bank accounts, credit reporting and debt collection.