Thoughts

Long Story Short...

Biden Budget Plan Would Impose Earned Wage Access Tax Withholding Mandates on Employers

Short Story: A proposal tucked into the Biden Administration’s 2023 budget proposal could disrupt the payroll withholding schedule of employers offering Earned Wage Access (“EWA”) options to employees, forcing them to withhold and pay EWA employment taxes differently from non-EWA employees.  Long Story: The Biden Administration’s 2023 budget blueprint proposed requiring that employees with access […]

New Rule Requires Banks and Service Providers to Report System Disruptions

Long Story Short: Starting on May 1, 2022, a new rule will require banks to notify their Federal regulator within 36 hours after determining their electronic systems have experienced a material disruption (regardless of whether it was caused by a cybersecurity intrusion or non-malicious technical failure leading to an outage). Bank service providers will have […]

E-Sign: An Explainer

Long Story Short: E-Sign and UETA allows agreements signed electronically (such as through checking a box) to be fully enforceable. In addition, E-Sign permits account disclosures to be delivered electronically, so long as the consumer is given a series of E-Sign disclosures and affirmatively consents to such electronic delivery. Long Story: Over the last 20+ […]

New California Law Takes Aim at Benefit Payments to Challenger Bank Accounts

[Special Note: A previous version of this posting indicated that the effective date of the California law discussed below was January 1, 2023. However, based on information recently provided by the California Legislature, the effective date for the new law is January 1, 2022.] Long Story Short: Staring on January 1, 2022, challenger bank programs […]

Long Story Short…

Long Story Short: I’ve started Axell Law to bring a practical legal perspective to the payments and FinTech industry, and this is my first blog posting (so, please be gentle!). Inspired by the disruption I’ve seen FinTechs deliver to the banking industry’s doorstep, I’m taking a swing at disrupting the legal industry (in some small […]