On the recordDecember 12, 2012
Thank you, Chairman Capito, for yielding. I rise today in strong support of the amended version of H.R. 5817, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act. Under current law, all financial institutions are required to provide annual privacy notices explaining information-sharing practices to customers. Banks and credit unions are required to give these notices each year even if their privacy notice has not changed. This creates not only waste for financial institutions but confusion among and increased costs to consumers. In his book entitled ``The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure,'' John Allison reports that one bank offered at the end of its privacy notice to pay $100 to any customer that read its notice in full. Only one customer took the bank up on that offer. Year after year, millions of dollars are spent on privacy notices that are either disregarded by or confuse the customers. Let's think about this cost for a second. This outdated requirement doesn't cost only in postage alone, but also costs in compliance costs, cost of supplies, printing fees, and man hours. I talked to one community bank in my district that said they spent roughly 70 cents per disclosure. With a minimum of 250,000 accounts and customers, this one bank spends $175,000 a year on this requirement.…
