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#2172745 - 04/10/18 03:28 PM Internet Rate "Sheet"
Compliance NABW Offline
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Joined: Oct 2015
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I have done a lot of research on the topic of advertising and I have not been able to come to a clear conclusion on an Internet page that lists the rates of a creditor's various products. Obviously, as the APR is a trigger term for open-end credit, and "30-year" is a trigger term for closed-end credit, there would be various triggered term disclosures necessary for such a page. I see the exemption in the definition of "advertising" for "Informational material, for example, interest-rate and loan-term memos, distributed only to business entities." But, as the internet display is not only for business entities, then it wouldn't seem to apply. Is it common practice that lenders consider a rate sheet page on their website as an electronic advertisement requiring all the necessary disclosures? If not, should it be, lol?If so, do most creditors use the one-click rule to take the viewer to a page with all the relevant triggered terms? Or, does this not fall within the scope of an "advertisement?"

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#2172754 - 04/10/18 03:51 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
Adam Witmer Offline
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JPC - As I'm sure you suspect, webpage rate sheets are absolutely considered an advertisement and covered by the rules. That said, I have seen many that do not follow the rules as some regulators don't seem to even look at them, though that does not mean that they are correct. For me, I have only recently seen a growing trend where banks are now utilizing the 1-click rule. In the past, I had not seen it used very often, but am seeing it much more often now.

I recently did a random sample of about a half dozen financial institution I was familiar with and found that they all had rate sheets on their websites, but only a couple had full compliance with the advertising rules.
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#2172864 - 04/10/18 08:04 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
Shortly after Al Gore invented the internet, banks discovered that it offered new and exciting ways to violate Reg. Z's advertising rules. For several years before and after the dawn of this century, I presented seminars on the general topic of "regulatory compliance and the internet." It was a full day and there was never a shortage of live examples of bank websites with assorted violations of a number of regs. Occasionally, some of my poster children found and fixed an error and then I had to search for another bank violating that particular rule. Before each seminar, I always found 10 bank websites with loan rateboard pages and did a quick pass/fail test. The best I could ever report to my audience was a 20% "pass" rate for these rateboard pages.

Adam is right about the regulators. With rare exception, they have done a poor job of policing the rules applicable to rateboard web page ads.
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#2173008 - 04/11/18 04:55 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Richard Insley
P*Q Offline

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Originally Posted By Richard Insley

With rare exception, they have done a poor job of policing the rules applicable to rateboard web page ads.
They may not going forward if they stumble across this thread. grin Thankful we treat our site as we do any other medium of advertising and that compliance reviews any change or new page prior to making live.

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#2173078 - 04/11/18 07:47 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
Compliance NABW Offline
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Thank you all for confirming what I expected the answer to be.

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#2173082 - 04/11/18 08:20 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" P*Q
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
Originally Posted By P*Q
They may not going forward if they stumble across this thread. grin
I've said the same thing for 20 years, so it will be a shock if this thread finally gets their attention.
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#2173153 - 04/12/18 01:17 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
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I participated in probably around 70 exams during my time with the OCC. I don't think we ever reviewed TILA advertising compliance.

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#2173186 - 04/12/18 02:57 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
Richard Insley Online
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Richard Insley
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Toano, VA
Thanks for the candor, JPC. It's obvious that your agency's posture wasn't out of line with the other regulators. If Reg. Z's advertising rules aren't going to be enforced, they should be repealed.
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#2173210 - 04/12/18 04:11 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
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Man, if that was the case, almost everything would have to be repealed, lol. We only have/had 3 mandatory consumer compliance items to review: Flood, SCRA, and Fair Lending Risk Assessment. Other than these 3, we picked up other Regulations "as time allowed." But, considering BSA/AML was also required and that took up the majority of our allotted time, "as time allowed" didn't happen very often. And, if it did, it was only 1 or 2 regulations. I usually picked up Reg. CC because I knew I could find violations with the Exception Hold notices or process.

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#2173254 - 04/12/18 06:18 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
David Dickinson Offline
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As someone that consults with hundreds of banks, I agree with JPC's comments. However, this isn't the case for FRB and FDIC regulated banks. The OCC is much more focused, but not necessarily easier on the one's JPC listed.
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#2173378 - 04/13/18 02:12 PM Re: Internet Rate "Sheet" Compliance NABW
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This is because the OCC does not have a separate consumer compliance examination, like the FDIC and FRB^. Yes, in the areas the OCC does look at though, they are well known as the "tougher" regulator.

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