Morning Consult: The Number of Fintech Consumer Complaints Filed to the CFPB Exploded in the Beginning of 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans operated online and led to the adoption of many new fintech products, which in turn has caused an uptick in related complaints filed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the past year, this article reported.

Complaints titled “money transfer, virtual currency or money services,” which encompasses fintech, “saw the sharpest rise in complaints, roughly doubling from the same period the year prior,” Morning Consult noted. O’Melveny counsel Melissa Guidorizzi, a former attorney with CFPB, told the publication that the rise in complaints will likely lead to greater attention from the Bureau’s enforcement team. The CFPB has always “been open about the importance of consumer complaints in assessing where to put its resources,” she said.

“Practically, one of the reasons why these products are getting more complaints is that digitally native products are advertising that they function like a bank and that they have all the same consumer protections,” Guidorizzi added. “If they aren’t living up to this promise, that’s where the complaints are coming from.”

Morning Consult subscribers can read the full article here.