Yesterday, at the historic Old U.S. Mint in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) held a field hearing on mobile financial services in connection with its newly released formal Request for Information (“RFI”) on the subject. As we noted in our alert announcing this event, the field hearing represents the first time in more than two years that a federal agency has sponsored a public forum on mobile financial services, and likely signals a CFPB interest in how financial services are delivered to consumers via smartphone technology. These developments also demonstrate the CFPB’s desire to stay abreast of innovation within the financial services industry. The following provides an overview of the field hearing.

REMARKS BY DIRECTOR CORDRAY -

CFPB Director Richard Cordray opened the event by announcing the RFI and stating that the CFPB has two primary areas of interest with regard to mobile financial services. First, the CFPB is interested in learning about how mobile financial services might provide unbanked and underbanked consumers with better access to financial products and services. Second, the CFPB wants to understand how mobile devices can provide consumers with additional tools to manage their finances in real time.