On August 10, 2018, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (“CFPB”) issued a final rule amending Regulation P, which requires financial institutions to send annual privacy notices to their customers. The final rule implements a statutory amendment that was made in December 2015 providing financial institutions with an exception to the annual privacy requirement if they meet two conditions:
- A financial institution must not share nonpublic personal information about customers except as provided in the statutory exceptions; and
- A financial institution must not have changed its policies and practices regarding the disclosure of nonpublic personal information from the policies and practices that were last disclosed to customers.
Additionally, the CFPB is amending Regulation P to include timing requirements for delivery of annual privacy notices for a financial institution that previously qualified for an exception to this requirement but changed its policy or practices so that it no longer qualifies for an exception.
Finally, this final rule removes the alternative delivery method. The CFPB indicates its rationale for removing this delivery method was that financial institutions that meet the conditions to use this alternative delivery method will also meet the conditions for the statutory exception, so the alternative delivery method will no longer be necessary.
The amendments in the final rule will become effective 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
Click here for the full amendment.