Superintendent Harris testified before NYS legislature and DFS issued its Regulatory Agenda. Per testimony:
Looking Back:
• “Since August 2021, DFS has adopted or amended 54 regulations, issued 98 pieces of regulatory guidance, and closed 117 enforcement actions resulting in more than $418 million in penalties.”
•“We have addressed more than 157,000 consumer complaints and returned $$645 million to New York State consumers and health care providers, including over $228 million just last year.”
Looking Forward:
• Cryptocurrency: “If through our supervision we find that a regulated entity is not in compliance with our rules, our supervisory team can take action itself or quickly refer cases to DFS’s enforcement division. Our enforcement team will investigate and take appropriate enforcement actions to ensure that companies pay penalties for violations, remediate issues, and, where applicable, return lost funds to customers. Under my leadership, we have levied the Department’s first-ever enforcement actions for violations of our virtual currency regulation.”
• CRA: “DFS proposed a regulation which expands the Community Reinvestment Act to non-bank mortgage lenders, encouraging equitable lending practices that benefit neighborhoods throughout the state, particularly those with low- and moderate-income residents.”
• PBMs: “Our recently enacted market conduct regulation protects New Yorkers’ access to prescription drugs, prohibits certain business practices that increase the cost of prescription drugs, and helps ensure that small, independent pharmacies can compete with large pharmacies affiliated with PBMs.”
• Mental Health Parity: “While I know that we cannot solve the mental health crisis through our role as an insurance regulator alone, we must do everything within our authority to hold insurers accountable. During my tenure, the Department has issued nine consent orders to insurance companies for not complying with state and federal cost-sharing requirements for mental health and substance use disorder parity. These orders have secured penalties that provide critical funding for initiatives supporting parity implementation and enforcement on behalf of consumers, on top of $500,000 in consumer restitution.”
• Banking Fee Practices: “To address unfair fee practices, last month DFS proposed regulations to prohibit predatory fees, cap the number of daily overdraft charges, and improve transparency through timely notifications.”