Year: 2025

The U.S. Treasury issued long-awaited guidance on rounding cash transactions to the nearest nickel on December 23 in the face of potential penny shortages. The guidance, in the form of FAQs, points to a recent report by the National Council of State Legislators (“NCSL”) as an example of how states are likely to respond.

The NCSL’s November 21, 2025 report titled Elimination of the Penny: Cents-able Considerations states: “The most recommended form of rounding is symmetrical rounding whereby if the final digit of the total transaction amount (including taxes) is 1, 2, 6, or 7 cents, the amount is rounded down to the nearest multiple of five. If the final…
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The Dodd-Frank Act amended The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) by requiring that the dollar threshold for exempt consumer credit transactions be adjusted annually by the annual percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). If there is no annual percentage increase in the CPI-W, the exemption threshold from the prior year is not adjusted. The Dodd-Frank Act requires similar adjustments in the Consumer Leasing Act’s threshold for exempt consumer leases. TILA establishes special appraisal requirements for “higher-priced mortgage loans.” The regulations implementing these requirements…
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The U.S. Senate Banking Committee did not hold a markup hearing on the CLARITY Act, the market structure legislation to define which federal regulator will oversee what part of the digital assets (“crypto”) industry, before its Christmas break. Under the Act, the classification of a digital asset (whether as a security or a commodity) will determine the appropriate regulator. See our ALERTS of July 11 and July 18, 2025. While the committee reportedly made significant progress, lawmakers are still negotiating. The committee is working from a Republican draft. Democratic concerns include financial stability, market integrity and ethics. The delay may be disappointing for the industry but may result in a more solid bill. How quickly the committee can get to and complete its work in 2026 is uncertain.
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Plaintiffs filed a petition for rehearing en banc on December 9 with regard to National Association of Industrial Bankers v. Weiser¹ before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Defendants did not object. The Comptroller of the Currency issued a statement the same day criticizing the panel’s decision as fundamentally inconsistent with Congress’s efforts to create competitive equality between state and federally chartered banks and calling on the courts or, if necessary, Congress to remedy the outcome.²
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The early returns are in and the tally does not look good for national bank preemption following the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous landmark decision in Cantero v Bank of America, N.A., 1 but have the U.S. Courts of Appeals gotten the analysis, or even the relevant law, quite correct yet? The first ruling up was the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s decision in Conti v. Citizens Bank, N.A.2 In a September 22, 2025, opinion, a panel of the First Circuit ruled unanimously that the National Bank Act (NBA) does not preempt Rhode Island’s law requiring banks to pay interest on mortgage escrow accounts. The Conti decision was followed October 2 by a panel of the Ninth Circuit that, by a 2-1 vote, reissued an opinion in Kivett v. Flagstar Bank, FSB, 3 upholding an earlier ruling that the NBA does not preempt a California law requiring banks to pay interest on mortgage escrow accounts.
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It is said that when driving in Italy, all roads lead to Rome; in the U.S., when lending on an interstate basis, it seems that all interpretations lead back to Marquette.1

We now have the benefit of the 10th Circuit’s majority and dissenting opinions in National Association of Industrial Bankers v. Weiser (“NAIB”), 2 perhaps the most significant case to explore Section 525 of the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) and of the “making“ of loans on a interstate basis since Marquette…
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The Ohio Division of Financial Institutions posted a revised Guidance document dated October 31, 2025 reversing the Guidance first posted in December of 2024. See our ALERTS of Jan. 21, 2025, Jan. 8, 2025 and Dec. 18, 2024. The new Guidance is consistent with the Division’s long standing positing that the Ohio Small Loan Act does not apply to third parties that arrange loans for banks…
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The United States District Court for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, using a narrowly grammatical interpretation, reversed the lower court and concluded that the plain language of Section 1831d’s opt-out provision is “unambiguous” and that “loans made in such State” refers to any loan in which either the lender or the borrower is located in the opt-out state. The decision was adopted by two of the three judges on the case, with the third judge filing a dissent…
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Ohio S.B. No. 269 to amend the Ohio Small Loan Act (“SLA”) was introduced in the Ohio General Assembly and had its first hearing before the Senate Financial Institutions, Insurance and Technology Committee October 14, 2025. S.B. No. 269 changes the “or” to an “and” in the trigger for licensing under the SLA, making licensing applicable to those lending in amounts of $5,000 or less and charging greater interest and charges than otherwise permitted….
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Following a joint stipulation filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs Inc. on August 7, District Judge Analisa Torres issued a Final Judgement and Order of Dismissal in the longstanding action by the SEC against Ripple and others. Case No. 1:20-cv-10832 (AT) (filed Aug. 8, 2025). Previously ordered remedies, including a civil penalty of $125 million and an injunction against certain institutional sales of Ripple’s XRP token, remain in place. The parties will bear their own costs and attorneys’ fees…
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