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Providers of consumer financial services that rely on federal preemption to charge customers uniform interest rates and fees on a nationwide basis are currently facing a series of legislative and litigation challenges. In this episode, which repurposes a recent webinar, we first discuss the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s grant of certiorari in Cantero v. Bank of America on the question whether the National Bank Act preempts state laws requiring the payment of interest on mortgage escrow accounts and look at the competing arguments and preemption standards under consideration. We then look at the Dodd-Frank Act\u2019s provisions on federal preemption for national banks and federal savings associations, OCC regulations addressing the scope of federal preemption, and federal statutes providing interest rate exportation authority for national and state-chartered banks and other institutions. We then turn to current legal challenges to rate exportation authority, focusing on state laws opting out of federal law allowing interest rate exportation by state banks, state laws defining \u201ctrue lender\u201d to target nonbank/bank partnerships seeking to take advantage of federal interest rate exportation authority, and the California trial court\u2019s recent ruling in a very important \u201ctrue lender\u201d lawsuit. We conclude with a discussion of the potential implications of a U.S. Supreme Court override of the Chevron deference framework for OCC and FDIC regulations interpreting federal statutes on interest rate authority of national and state banks.

Alan Kaplinsky, Senior Counsel in Ballard Spahr\u2019s Consumer Financial Services Group, leads the discussion, joined by John Culhane, Reid Herlihy, and Ronald Vaske, partners in the Group, and Mindy Harris, Of Counsel in the Group.