By In-Sung Yoo and Brandy Bruyere

With all the swirl around the new administration’s flurry of Executive Orders and overall change with the federal government, it is easy to lose track of recent regulatory developments. 

Despite the current deregulatory position of the federal government, some measures continue to proceed with established timelines.  Until recently, one of those measures had been the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) February 2024 Report and Order (2024 Order or “revocation rule”) on TCPA consent revocation, originally slated to take effect today. This rule, in part, would require treating a consumer’s revocation of consent for one type of call or text message as revoking consent for all calls or texts that require consent: “[i]f a called party uses any [reasonable] method to revoke consent, that consent is considered definitively revoked and the caller may not send additional robocalls and robotexts.”

Last-Minute Order

As businesses scrambled towards timely compliance with this rather unworkable requirement, on April 7, 2025, in response to a request from trade associations representing banks, credit unions, and similar institutions, the FCC released a last-minute Order (2025 Order) delaying the effective date for part of the revocation rule by one year to April 11, 2026. The FCC explained this is to “allow affected parties a reasonable opportunity to implement modifications to communications systems …” to comply.  

So, with this additional year to comply, what do financial institutions need to do to manage consumers indicating they no longer want to receive calls or texts?

Tortured and Convoluted

With a tortured and convoluted framework and regulatory history, implementing compliance measures to meet regulatory requirements and mitigate TCPA risk is challenging. As a reminder, the TCPA, in part, requires prior express written consent for using an autodialer or initiating robocalls with a marketing or promotional purpose to a consumer’s cell phone. Prior express consent is required for informational calls to cell phones that use these technologies. 

Then, there are some narrow exemptions for certain calls or texts regarding fraud, data breaches, or financial transactions made by financial institutions to consumers.

Primary Requirements

The 2024 Order includes several primary requirements:

• Codifying past FCC orders allowing consumers to revoke consent via “any reasonable manner” and requiring honoring such revocation within 10 days
• Requiring that if a consumer revokes consent for one type of call/text that otherwise requires consent, callers must treat that as revocation with regard to all such calls and texts to that phone number
• Permitting the use of a one-time text message to confirm the consumer’s revocation, sent within five minutes of the consumer’s revocation.

Operational Challenges

The provision relating to scope of revocation created operational challenges and are the subject of this one-year delay. Financial institutions have taken great pains to show the FCC that there is clear consumer benefit to robust customer alert systems. Prior to the 2024 Order, there existed some gray area to treat a consumer’s opt-out for a particular subcategory of calls/texts as being indicative of their desire to opt-out of that specific subcategory of communications.

This would, of course, leave a potential host of other types of useful communications in play. The presumption of broad revocation risks opting consumers out of calls/texts they value, such as payment reminders, simply because they opted out of unrelated messages like marketing calls/texts. The presumption of broad revocation is also hard to apply in practice. Financial institutions often send different types of messages from multiple platforms, tools, or vendors, making it challenging to track revocation for one type of call/text and applying that across communication channels. 

However, under the 2024 Order, barring any further feedback from that consumer, a financial institution would be expected to flip the proverbial “kill-switch” on all communications requiring consent under the TCPA.

‘All the More Important’

This makes the narrow exemptions to the consent requirement for financial institutions all the more important. The FCC noted that the new rule “applies only to robocalls and robotexts that the called party has consented to receive and is separate from the ability of callers to make such informational communications pursuant to an exemption, which do not require consent,” and that  “when a consumer revokes consent with regard to telemarketing robocalls or robotexts, the caller can continue to reach the consumer pursuant to an exempted informational call, which does not require consent, unless and until the consumer separately expresses an intent to opt out of these exempted calls.” 

This means financial institutions should reassess just how well-aligned existing communications are to the fairly detailed requirements of the exemptions for certain financial institution communications. 

The Strict Limits

The exemptions are “strictly limited” to calls or texts for the following purposes:

• Transactions and events that suggest a risk of fraud or identity theft; possible breaches of the security of consumers’ personal information
• Steps consumers can take to prevent or remedy harm caused by data security breaches
• Actions needed to arrange for receipt of pending money transfers.

The exemptions can serve as a pressure release valve after initial consumer revocation. 

Credit Union, Beware

Beware the prescriptive requirements for these exempt texts, like limits on the length (one minute for calls or 160 characters for texts), a cap of three messages per event over a three-day period, offering an easy method to opt out, immediately honoring opt outs, and other requirements.

Note, this recent change does not delay the entire 2024 Order and rulemaking for a year, other requirements require compliance by the April 11, 2025 deadline. With an additional year to iron out processes, procedures, and technologies, financial institutions would do well to take full advantage of this bit of reprieve as a means to ensure compliance by the new deadline, absent further regulatory relief that may (or may not) come from the new administration.

The Benefit of Counsel

The TCPA is complex and frequently litigated. This article is just a high-level overview of a narrow part of the Act and its regulatory framework. When reviewing your TCPA compliance program, having the benefit of counsel can be helpful for mitigating risks in balance with the value of providing consumers with useful or even critical information.

In-Sung Yoo is Financial Services Regulatory Attorney and Compliance Officer, and Brandy Bruyere is Regulatory Compliance Attorney, Consumer Financial Services & Credit Unions + Partner, both at  Honigman, LLP. For info, go here.