The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is aiming to extend regulatory oversight to tech giants like Apple and Google, which provide digital payment apps and wallets.

The CFPB highlights the growing market influence of platforms such as Apple Pay and PayPal, emphasizing the blurring of traditional boundaries between banking, payments, and commercial activities by Big Tech.

Despite their increasing dominance, these payment service providers currently operate with less regulatory scrutiny compared to traditional banks and credit unions. To address this disparity, the CFPB has introduced a proposed rule. The rule's key provision is to subject non-bank financial entities facilitating more than five million transactions annually to the same regulations as major banks and credit unions.

Approximately 17 companies, including Google, Apple, PayPal, and CashApp operator Block, would fall under the purview of this rule. If enacted, these companies would be required to comply with existing funds transfer, privacy, and consumer protection laws.

Highlighting the significance of payment systems as crucial economic infrastructure, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra emphasizes the historical concentration of such activities within supervised banks. The proposed rule aims to address regulatory arbitrage by ensuring that large technology firms and other nonbank payment entities face appropriate oversight.

This initiative builds on the CFPB's previous actions in 2021 when it directed Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to provide information about their payment system plans. The goal was to assess how these companies collect and utilize customer data.