I think it’s safe to say that whether it’s the environment or energy or workplace safety, a Biden administration will look to restore regulations that the Trump administration rolled back.
And that includes the financial sector where the Trump White House has done its best to loosen or eliminate financial rules imposed during the Obama years.
On Saturday, the New York Times put together a handy list of where investors should look for action in the financial sector.
Payday lending: In late 2017 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized tough new rules on payday lending. Trump’s appointee to run the bureau first delayed new regulations for a year and then, this year, rescinded them entirely.
Fiduciary standing for financial advisors: A Obama administration rule would have required that finical advisors and brokers handling retirement and 401(k) accounts act as fiduciaries, a legal standard that requires them to put customer interests first. A Federal court ruled that the Labor Department had exceeded its authority in this rule and the Trump administration did not challenge the ruling.
Debt collectors: Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized rules that would, for the first time, allow debt collectors to contact borrowers via email, social media, and text messages. The rules did, however, limit debt collectors to no more than seven phone calls a week in their efforts to collect debts.
The Volker Rule: The Trump administration and Charles Quarles, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision (and a Trump appointee), have been working on measures that would restrict the power of bank supervisors to enforce bank regulations.
Rent-a-bank workarounds to avoid state limits on interest rates: Rules recently finalized by the Trump administration gave the go ahead to the practice where banks operating in states that limit the  interest rates that they can charge on loans avoid those limits by having a bank in another state (one without limits on interest rates) issue the loans and then buying the loans back.
