Last week, the FCC completed its The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act)-mandated review of certain regulations and regulatory exemptions adopted to implement the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA) prohibitions and limitations on robocalls.  The Commission’s order reflects a number of victories for positions CUNA advocated for, both on its own and in coalition with other trade associations, including: 

• Retention of and codification of exemptions for financial institution calls to a wireless number, including calls regarding fraudulent transactions, security data breaches, and identity theft;
• Adoption of a requirement that voice service providers that block calls must immediately notify callers of such blocking; and
• Adoption of a requirement that voice service providers respond to blocking disputes through an established point of contact by providing a status update within 24 hours.
  

Unfortunately, the Commission did adopt some restrictions to exemptions for non-marketing informational calls, including account-related calls, delivered via artificial or prerecorded voice to residential landlines without the prior express consent of the called party, including:

• limiting the number of such calls that can be made pursuant to this exemption to three artificial or prerecorded voice calls within any consecutive 30-day period; and
• requiring callers to provide an “opt out” option for recipients of such calls, and to keep records and abide by such “do not call” restrictions.
  

We are still reviewing the details of the final orders and will continue to advocate for unfettered Credit Union-Member communications wherever possible.  For example, we may be able to mitigate some of the negative impacts of these new restrictions if the FCC interprets the restrictions to apply to 3 calls per customer on each land line, particularly for households with multiple account holders who may receive informational calls for different purposes.

In addition, attached you'll find FCC’s press release and two rulemakings (Section 8 Order regarding Exemptions and the second one on Call Blocking).