'Is anyone buying the "We've changed. Trust us" pitch?': Comments of the week

On the repeal of the CFPB’s indirect auto lending guidance:

“Two borrowers with the same credit score and similar DTI get a loan for a new car. One gets charged 8.000%, the other 7.500%. Guess which one is a woman and which is a man getting the loan. Discretionary pricing has no place in consumer auto finance. Another blow to the common working man and woman.”

Related: Trump makes repeal of CFPB auto lending rule official

On a senator's postal banking proposal:

“Horrible idea to let the government do banking. They already fail at 99% of what they do and the 1% they get right is 10x's more expensive than what the free market can provide. If it was a good idea to bank the ‘unbankable’ it would already be successfully accomplished. The ‘unbankable’ are that way for very good reasons.”

Related: Return to sender: Here's what's wrong with postal banking

A Wells Fargo & Co. sign sits on display outside the company's offices in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Wells Fargo & Co., the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets and deposits, may raise its dividend once capital levels satisfy regulators and if the economic recovery continues, said Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

On Wells Fargo’s executive team wanting to make its operational risk and compliance efforts as strong as its credit risk management:

“Is anyone buying the ‘We've changed. Trust us.’ pitch? One earns trust by demonstrating they are trustworthy, not by running ads while shoes continue to drop.”

Related: Wells Fargo won't give timeline on end to regulatory troubles

On acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney easing Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requirements imposed by his predecessor:

“Love this line....‘If Congress had wanted us to collect 23 or 26 or 30 or 100 [data fields], they would have told us collect 23 or 36 or 100,’ So, Mulvaney ‘reduces’ the number of data fields to only those mandated by DFA and it's viewed as dismantling by some. Strange logic.”

Related: CFPB’s Mulvaney plots HMDA rollback, but it may not matter

On calls to apply behavioral science tactics to savings accounts so that consumers use the product more:

“Banks don't have the authority to automatically open accounts (as, say, Wells Fargo did) or default direct deposit to a savings account. And because of Reg D, which limits the number of monthly withdrawals from a savings account, defaulting a consumer's direct deposit to savings could leave them without the ability to make payments once they've reached the limit of 6 withdrawals.”

Related: Savings accounts need an overhaul

On the risks of using facial recognition to authenticate customers:

“Face solutions are not all recognition products (image matching), but also *authenticators* that actually verify liveness (not a nod or blink). Being aware going into development is key, with the goal training not on skin color, but on unique individual attributes. The conversation needs to be about true authentication, not recognition, and on ignoring attributes that really don't matter.”

Related: Facing up to bias in facial recognition