Technological advances in the payments industry are dramatically increasing access to financial services for the 68 million unbanked and/or underbanked consumers in the United States. Access to banking services boosts job creation, raises income, reduces vulnerability to theft, and increases investments in human capital.

Empowering people with low to moderate income to save and invest in themselves creates opportunities to get people out of poverty. Retail banks provide valuable and important services, but putting a bank on every corner is unrealistic. Mobile phones and products like pre-paid cards allow access to some of the same services brick-and-mortar banks provide at an affordable price. Consumers value the accessibility and portability of prepaid cards, including the fact that they can obtain these products at retail stores, and that they are often less expensive than other products, such as check cashing services.

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But a series of new rules proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) could stifle innovation in the financial services industry, increase costs to consumers, limit access to transformative new platforms and prove detrimental to the millions of consumers who rely on prepaid products for financial independence.

The 870-page CFPB proposal is the Bureau’s first effort to expand its regulations to include prepaid financial products. Although well intentioned, these proposed rules would reduce or eliminate consumer-friendly features of prepaid products. For example, proposed “ability to repay” provisions, 30-day waiting periods, packaging requirements, standard form consumer disclosures, and restrictions on overdraft protections would all regulate out of existence features that meet consumer needs. Existing regulations applicable to prepaid accounts provide consumers the information they need to make informed decisions and choose products to achieve their financial goals.

The CFPB also broadly categorizes innovative products such as mobile wallets, peer-to-peer payments and digital currencies like bitcoin under the “prepaid” umbrella. These products, still under development and with the potential to revolutionize and add real value to the financial services industry, are not prepaid nor are they used by consumers in a way analogous to prepaid. This naked jurisdictional grab would be a wholly unnecessary regulatory roadblock to the nascent mobile payments and digital currency marketplaces.

The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association of the payments technology industry, believes in the highest standard of self-governance for our industry. We work with our innovative member companies to advance industry best practices, providing compliance resources and education. We are leading cooperation between the payments, financial services, and retail industries to ensure that Americans are protected and that our collective efforts yield forward thinking safeguards and marketplace solutions.

Overreaching and burdensome federal regulation will stifle innovation in the financial services industry by imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to a highly diverse and flexible range of financial service products that serve a critical need. This would hamper competition and ultimately harm the access that all consumers – and especially unbanked and underbanked consumers – have to financial products and services.

The CFPB has an important consumer protection role among the dozens of federal agencies that police the financial services and technology marketplace. But we should be wary of this agency’s forceful effort to expand its jurisdiction and impose heavy handed regulation on new services. Instead, the CFPB should reaffirm its mission of making financial products work for Americans and promote these innovative products that advance financial inclusion.

Oxman is the CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), an international trade association representing the payments technology industry.