12 CFR Part 1090
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) seeking information to assist it in considering whether to propose a rule to amend the test to define larger participants in the consumer debt collection market established by the Bureau’s Defining Larger Participants of the Consumer Debt Collection Market Final Rule published in October 2012.
Comments must be received by September 22, 2025. The ANPR can be found here.
Summary
Section 1024 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) gives the Bureau supervisory authority over larger participants of a market for other consumer financial products/services.
Currently, a nonbank covered person is considered to be a larger participant of the consumer debt collection market if the person has more than $10 million in annual receipts resulting from consumer debt collection activities as those terms are defined in the Consumer Debt Collection Larger Participant Rule.
The Bureau is concerned that the benefits of the current threshold may not justify the compliance burdens for many of the entities that are currently considered larger participants in this market, and that the current threshold may be diverting limited Bureau resources.
The Bureau is seeking comment on the following questions:
- Is $10 million in annual receipts an appropriate threshold for determining which entities should be considered larger participants in the consumer debt collection market? If not, what annual receipts threshold or other criterion and associated threshold would be more appropriate and why?How would consumers be impacted by a potential increase in the threshold? Submissions of data related to the benefits or costs to consumers of the current rule and particular changes to the threshold are encouraged.
- How would changing the current threshold for larger participants alter the behavior of participants in the consumer debt collection market? How would these changes benefit or harm consumers and participants? Would those changes in behavior have impacts beyond this specific market?How would changing the current threshold for larger participants affect the Bureau’s ability to address potential market failures in the consumer debt collection market and related areas?
- What are the costs to covered entities that are specific to the Bureau’s supervisory authority for larger participants in the consumer debt collection market? Specific figures as to staffing, staff time, and other resources are encouraged. How often are these costs incurred for larger participants under the current rule who are close to the current threshold for being larger participants?
- What are the costs to covered persons that are not specific to the Bureau’s supervisory authority, but are specific to being a larger participant in the consumer debt collection market? For instance, are there costs of monitoring status as a larger participant, or costs related to complying with relevant Federal statutes and regulations beyond what the firm would find reasonable, absent the possibility of supervision?
- Are there costs to covered persons from the current larger participant rule that specifically apply to firms whose annual receipts are lower than, but close to, the threshold?
- Are there costs/benefits to consumers, including rural consumers, servicemembers, and veterans, of raising the larger participant threshold?
- Do small business concerns, as defined by the SBA, or other smaller or mid-size entities qualify as larger participants under the current threshold in the consumer debt collection market? Do these entities incur costs of compliance with their larger participant status that are not in proportion to their size relative to other larger participants in the consumer debt collection market?
- Should the Bureau’s test for defining larger participants in the consumer debt collection account for the SBA’s size standards? If so, how?
- Are there significant recordkeeping requirements that would be reduced by raising the larger participant threshold?
- What other specific costs or benefits, not mentioned above, would a change in the larger participant threshold have for consumers and covered persons?
- Should the Bureau rely upon Economic Census data, SUSB data, or other sources of data to inform estimates of the current size of the firms in the consumer debt collection market and the number of firms that qualify as larger participants? What additional sources of data, if any, can reliably inform such estimates?