MOBILE Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1457) to establish requirements for use of a driver's license or personal identification card by certain financial institutions for opening an account or obtaining a financial product or service, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as financial service products continue to merge with the ever-evolving world of technology, the opportunities to reach unbanked and underserved households also continue to increase. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 7 percent of the U.S. population is unbanked, and 19.9 percent is underbanked.

The FDIC has concluded previously that mobile banking is well positioned to meet the day-to-day financial service needs of underbanked consumers as well as consumers at risk of account closure. Providing mobile financial services products to these households has shown to improve their financial outcomes by giving consumers more control over their finances, which helps households avoid burdensome fees and allows them to manage necessary payments more conveniently.

Further FDIC research suggests that nearly three-quarters of all underbanked households have access to a smartphone and that more than one-third of underbanked households used mobile banking in the past year. In particular, the FDIC found that mobile financial services improved account stability by helping underserved consumers successfully manage and maintain bank accounts.

Unfortunately, access to mobile financial service products is not equal across the United States. The Making Online Banking Initiation Legal and Easy Act remedies this lack of parity by establishing a uniform policy nationwide, allowing a financial institution to record personal information from a driver's license for the purpose of opening a bank account with a scan or copy.

The MOBILE Act creates uniform access to helpful financial products and provides certainty to financial institutions to offer their full range of mobile banking products to all consumers nationwide.

While the MOBILE Act creates a consistent law across the United States, it is careful to protect consumer privacy information and existing State privacy laws. The bill requires financial institutions to delete all copies of a driver's license and personal identification after having used them for the permitted purposes of opening an account.

The legislation is also careful not to reduce any financial institution's commitment to comply with Federal and State laws aimed at preventing identity theft, financial fraud, money laundering, or know your customer and Customer Identification Programs.

A Federal Reserve report from 2016 found that mobile banking use was rising at relatively fast rates, reporting that 43 percent of all mobile phone owners with a bank account had used mobile banking in the past 12 months, up from 39 percent in 2014 and 33 percent in 2013.

Following this trend, the use of mobile banking will continue to grow, and the MOBILE Act ensures that every consumer across the country who wants to use a mobile banking product is able to do so. This bill was passed out of the Financial Services Committee on a unanimous, bipartisan vote.

The MOBILE Act provides consumers easier access to the highly regulated financial services industry by simplifying their ability to open an account through the process of scanning or copying their State- issued identification card. As one State banking association wrote to me:

This legislation is mutually beneficial to both financial

institutions and their customers. The MOBILE Act will help

expand access to critical banking services for underbanked

populations by offering similar retail services through

mobile technology.

Increasing access for mobile financial services products also means giving rural communities, like many of the small towns I represent in Colorado, access to financial success. While many of us can drive a short distance, walk into a bank, and open an account, there are rural communities where physical bank locations are few and far between. By allowing those with smartphones to essentially have their bank accounts in their pocket, geography is no longer a constraint to accessing financial services products.

All families should have the tools they need to be able to achieve the financial stability and the prosperity the MOBILE Act will provide.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is important for the future financial health of our Nation's customers. I urge its passage here today, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1457, the Making Online Banking Initiation Legal and Easy, or MOBILE, Act, permits financial institutions to copy or scan a consumer's driver's license or personal ID card when a consumer decides to obtain a financial product or service.

At a time when more Americans are conducting their business online and through their phones, the MOBILE Act will help expand access to banking products and financial services for those consumers who do not have access to a traditional brick-and-mortar financial institution by allowing consumers to utilize their smartphones to open a checking or savings account.

While financial inclusion has increased significantly over the past 20 years, still, too many Americans do not get their basic financial needs met by traditional financial service providers. For example, in June 2016, the Obama administration released a report indicating that about 7 percent of American households still lack access to a bank account, and another 20 percent supplement their bank account with nontraditional financial services like check cashing or payday loans.

Technological innovations in the financial industry and commonsense proposals like the MOBILE Act here in Congress will continue to help us close this gap. The bill will expand credit opportunities for consumers who cannot easily get to a bank in person and provides them access to innovative new products that can improve their overall financial health.

An amendment in the nature of a substitute was adopted in committee that makes the MOBILE Act even stronger, and I want to thank Mr. Tipton for putting these improvements forward.

These improvements require financial institutions to permanently delete copies of consumers' ID cards within a reasonable amount of time after they have opened the account, made clarifying changes to better harmonize the bill's requirements with Federal bank secrecy laws, and recognized identification cards issued by federally recognized Indian Tribes as an acceptable identification card.

Perhaps most importantly, the bill also prohibits financial institutions from selling or otherwise sharing the personally identifiable information they collect from consumers with unaffiliated third parties.

The bill is supported by several financial technology and industry groups, including the Innovative Lending Platform Association and the Financial Services Roundtable.

Again, in a day and age when more and more Americans are conducting their business online and through their smartphones but still continue to lack access to traditional banking services and financial products, we need to be doing all we can to simplify the process and encourage account openings through these platforms.

The MOBILE Act is a strong step in that direction, and I have been proud to join the bill as a cosponsor. I encourage Members to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present for the vote today on S. 534, Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act (Roll Call No. 45), I would have voted aye. This bill would require authorization to interact with minor amateur athletes to report any suspected incidents of child abuse, including sexual abuse, to the sport's governing body.

Additionally, had I been present for the vote on H.R. 1457 (Roll Call No. 682), I would have voted aye. This bill would allow banks and other financial institutions nationwide to use an individual's state-issued driver's license or personal identification card to verify the individual's identity when using a mobile device to initiate mobile banking or other online service.

Mr. Speaker, I was absent from the House Chamber on Monday, January 29, 2018, recovering from a medical procedure. Had I recorded my vote, I would have voted:

``Yea'' on roll call no. 45, on the motion to suspend the rules and pass, as amended, S. 534, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act;

``Yea'' on roll call no. 46, on the motion to suspend the rules and pass, as amended, H.R. 1457, to establish requirements for use of a drivers license or personal identification card by certain financial institutions for opening an account or obtaining a financial product or service, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained in my congressional district and was not present for two roll call votes on Monday, January 29, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted in the following manner: Roll Call Vote No. 45--S. 534, Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, as amended--YES; and Roll Call Vote No. 46--H.R. 1457, To establish requirements for use of a driver's license or personal identification card by certain financial institutions for opening an account or obtaining a financial product or service, and for other purposes, as amended--YES.