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NAFCU is seeking a meeting at the Federal Communications Commission on issues surrounding a recent FCC ruling that provides limited robocall exemptions under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for financial institutions making free autodialed calls to consumers to safeguard their accounts.

The declaratory ruling and order grants an exemption for certain free-to-the-consumer autodialed calls by financial institutions. The TCPA permits the FCC to exempt autodialed informational calls if the recipient is not charged for the call. Using this authority, the order exempts four types of free-to-the-consumer calls from financial institutions:

• calls intended to prevent fraudulent transactions or identity theft;
• data security breach notifications;
• measures consumers may take to prevent identity theft following a data breach; and
• money transfer notifications.

The ruling however, may raise more questions than it answers. Technical questions as to whether or not the member will be charged for such texts or calls by their plan provider, or if they will count against their plan limits, may be impossible for a credit union to resolve.

NAFCU yesterday wrote FCC seeking a meeting to address these and other issues. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who aired similar concerns in his written dissent, immediately responded to the association.

Other provisions of the order place additional requirements on these types of exempt calls, including that there be an easy means of opting out of future calls, that messages be concise and less than a minute long (or 160 characters in a text message), and that no more than three calls be made over a three-day period. The order was effective with its release July 10.