Compliance Blog

NAFCU members: The January 2008 Regulatory Compliance Newsletter is available online.  Members may access it here.  This month's newsletter focuses on the FACT Act Affiliate Marketing final rule.  Several questions and answers focus on the new rule, and we've also prepared a more-detailed article and compliance flow chart to help you.  You can access the additional materials via the link above.

For you non-NAFCU'ers, here's a little taste.

Question: In the Affiliate Marketing final rule, §717.20(b)(4)(ii)(D) allows solicitation for 3 months if a consumer applies for a product or service from a credit union but doesn’t obtain it. Could we interpret this to mean that if someone applies for membership and does not follow through with completing all the necessary paperwork, we could market to them for three months using the information that they have provided?

Answer: Since the credit union received the information directly from the consumer rather than from an affiliate, the use of that information would not be governed by this rule. When deciding whether this rule applies, determine if the information came from an affiliate. If it did not, this rule does not apply.