Consumer Finance

Our services cover all aspects of the consumer finance area and include hands-on experience that gives us an understanding of the business and industry.  Our expertise in consumer lending includes regulatory and compliance matters relating to secured and unsecured consumer lending and sales finance, as well as litigation.  We regularly provide advice in connection with a wide variety of lending products, credit cards and payment products, and electronic commerce products.  We assist clients with compliance reviews, the development of new retail financial products, drafting and reviewing internal policies and procedures and employee training procedures, drafting and reviewing customer forms, disclosures and notices, and assisting clients in responding to and resolving inquiries from regulators and customers.

Our clients include bank and non-bank providers of consumer finance products and services, including diversified financial services companies, credit card issuers, industrial loan companies, merchants, merchant acquirers and credit card prossessors, among others.

Our team has experience performing comprehensive bench-marking studies within the financial services industry.  We also have experience conducting internal reviews and investigations (at the request of Boards, management and senior legal officials) and assisting clients with implementing effective internal controls for regulatory compliance and risk management purposes.  We also have represented a variety of governmental agencies in connection with dozens of bank and thrift failures.  These include liquidations of consumer finance and other assets (such as mortgage loans, credit card receivables, mortgage servicing rights, mortgage loan servicing and origination operations, mortgage-backed securities, subsidiary stock, and real property), litigation, bankruptcy, consumer finance and tax matters.  Our experience has provided us with a "birds-eye" view of many consumer lending practices that have had significant adverse implications for the institutions that employed them.