Online Lending in New York: More Trouble Ahead

Last month, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued an Online Lending Report that calls for the application of New York usury limits to all online lending and increased regulation of online lenders making loans to New York consumers and small businesses. It also calls for new safeguards for consumer litigation financing. Many of the recommendations made by the NYDFS would require legislation to implement. As a result, the NYDFS, and possibly the New York Attorney General as well, might seek to aggressively use its enforcement authority to target online lenders or providers of consumer litigation financing that are engaged in practices that the NYDFS’s recommendations are intended to address.

In this webinar, we will discuss:

• The survey on which the report was based

• The NYDFS’s recommendation to expand its licensing authority

• The impact of federal preemption of state interest rate limits on the NYDFS’ recommendation to apply New York usury law apply to all lending in the State

• The NYDFS’s support for use of the “true lender” theory and the Second Circuit’s Madden decision and related federal law developments

• The NYDFS’s recommendation that New York consumer protection laws and regulations apply to small business lending

• How companies engaged in consumer litigation financing can prepare for greater NYDFS scrutiny