As previously announced both here and here, both Indiana and Oklahoma have updated the maximum late fee which can be assessed under their versions of the Uniform Consumer Credit Code (“UCCC”).
As customary each year, the Oklahoma Department of Consumer Credit has increased the maximum late charge applicable to a consumer loan or revolving loan account under Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 14A, § 3-203(1) & (5) from $25.50 to $26.00.
In Indiana, it is customary for the Department of Financial Institutions to update the maximum charge every even-numbered year, per Ind. Code Ann. § 24-4.5-1-106. However, the Indiana Legislature decided to change the statutory text of Ibid. § 24-4.5-3-203.5(1) from $5 to $25.00, effectively increasing the maximum $6 more than what the Department of Financial Institutions’ most recent adjustment allowed (which was $19, effective July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2020).
Please note that the changes to Ibid. include reformatting the late fee restriction structure into a tier, which permits only a maximum charge of $5 for consumer loans with installment payments due every fourteen days or less (e.g. biweekly payments). While our standard loan packages include support for some biweekly loan programs, these programs are all for primary lien loans. “Consumer loans” under the Indiana UCCC is limited to junior lien loans, unless a primary lien loan is made subject to the UCCC by agreement (see Ibid. § 24-4.5-3-203.5[1]).
Thus, unless an agreement is made (and we do not provide such an agreement as a standard document), biweekly loans passed through our system will not be subject to the UCCC’s new biweekly late fee restriction, so we have not built a special rule for these. The other two tiers (for loans with installment payments due every 15 – 29 days and payments due every 30 days) are subject to the maximum $25.00 charge.
We will be updating our ConformX Late Fee Defaults to reflect these new maximum amounts, which will be pushed to Production on July 1, 2019, but are currently available on our Stage and Stage 2 environments. We strongly urge clients to test these changes on our Stage environments before they are pushed to Production and report any issues to their Account Manager and/or Client Support.
We will also be updating and posting our Late Fee and Late Fee ConformX matrices on July 1, 2019 reflecting not only these changes, but also including cross-references to new N.J. Stat. Ann. § 17:16F-38(b), which will be enacted later this year, but which does not affect our late fee defaults (see NJ AB 4997 § 12 [2019]).
If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, or discover any errors in testing, please contact Client Support at 1.800.497.3584.
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