ELFA Advocates and Educates on State Disclosure Bills

State Disclosure Map as of June 1, 2023 

ELFA is closely monitoring multiple disclosure bills in California. Two bills concerning disclosures by providers of commercial financing are currently before the California Assembly Committee on Banking and Finance:

California Senate Bill 33 would require providers of commercial financing to continue disclosing the total cost of financing expressed as an annualized rate indefinitely. 

California Senate Bill 666 would prohibit charging specified fees in financing with a small business, including a fee for accepting or processing a payment required by the financing contract as an automated clearing house transfer debit, a fee for providing a small business with documentation prepared by the licensee that contains a statement of the remaining debt, and a fee in addition to a loan origination fee that does not have a clear corresponding service.  

These bills have seen no legislative opposition having both passed the Senate 39-0. Your comments can be directed to ELFA Vice President, State Government Relations, Scott Riehl.  

Keeping the State Bills Straight 

As a reminder to readers, RED state bills (UT, VA, GA, MO, FL–passed, KS and MS) include the complete suite of ELFA negotiated exemptions. Those exemptions cover all UCC 2A, 9 and Captive governed transactions and a separate exemption exempting bank Subsidiaries and Affiliates. These bills are being pushed by others as the non-APR alternative to the BLUE state bills (CA, NY, CT–passed, NJ, NC, MD and IL) where ELFA has been fighting the hardest and is beginning to see the fruits of our labor. 

Webinar Addresses New York Disclosure Laws  

On July 12, ELFA presented a webinar titled, “The NY Disclosure Laws Are Effective on Aug. 1, 2023 – Will You Be Ready? Let Us Help!” More than 500 members participated in this event, which covered the differences between the disclosure laws of California and New York, the treatment of blind discounts and more. The session also updated attendees on the status of the disclosure laws in other states and ELFA’s successful efforts to have the state legislatures include ELFA’s suite of exemptions in any future laws. Speakers included Scott Riehl, VP of State Government Relations at ELFA; Moorari Shah, Partner at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton; Robert S. Cohen, Partner at Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP; and Robert Hornby, Partner at Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC. A recording of the webinar is available at https://www.elfaonline.org/webinars. 

State Legislatures in Session

State-by-state status (as of June 8):  
15 states are in regular session 
5 states are in special session 
11 states are not in session 

 With 15 states currently in session, your team at ELFA is working to review and, where needed, to address all legislation filed that impacts your interests. ELFA’s efforts are focused on identifying any and all measures that would wrongly infringe on the operations of ELFA members in the commercial sector, addressing those bills that require our attention and conversely promoting legislation that addresses industry needs. Traditionally ELFA has projected that more than 180,000 state legislative bills will be filed across the 50 states on a yearly basis. As the country continues to recover from the pandemic slowdown, ELFA as in 2022 estimates there will be more than 2,000 bills introduced in 2023 that may impact our members’ interests.

ELFA sends out email updates on state legislative and regulatory activity as it occurs. You can receive this information by sending complete contact information to ELFA Vice President, State Government Relations Scott Riehl.