January 6, 2023

Rohit Chopra

Director

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

1700 G St. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20552

Re: Supervision of Accenture, a Large and Risky Student Loan Company

Dear Director Chopra,

We write today to request that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) take action to

for the CFPB to clarify that Accenture’s size and centrality to the student loan system bring it

clearly within the ambit of the agency’s supervisory tool.

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Indeed, whether by acknowledging

Accenture’s standing as a larger participant in the student loan market or by noting the risks the

company clearly poses to borrowers, the CFPB already has the authority and obligation to act.

Student loan borrowers will not be safe until the agency does so.

I. Accenture is a systemically important student loan company that recently

demonstrated its capacity to inflict tremendous harm on borrowers.

Accenture is a multinational Fortune 500 corporation that generates tens of billions of dollars in

revenue each year through a variety of consulting and information technology services.

The

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4

https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accenture-signs-performance-based-contract-with-us-department-

education.htm

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maintenance” of the federal student loan program.

So-called “case studies” on Accenture’s

Within its role as a linchpin of the federal student loan system, Accenture regularly sends certain

important electronic messages to borrowers under the branding of ED’s Office of Federal Student

Aid (FSA). Borrowers reasonably rely on the information contained in these missives to plan for,

and manage household finances related to, the repayment of their debts.

Recent events, however, have made clear that borrowers’ trust in Accenture may be misplaced.

In particular, in November 2022, Accenture sent emails to roughly nine million federal student

loan borrowers with a subject line reading “Your Student Loan Debt Relief Application Has

Been Approved.” This message was sent in reference to the student debt relief plan that President

Biden announced in August 2022,

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and for which more than 26 million borrowers had applied by

false information. In particular, despite the assertion in that email’s subject line, the millions of

borrowers who received Accenture's November message had not had their applications

processed. In fact, many of the borrowers who received this erroneous email were not eligible for

relief and would not have been approved for it even if their applications had been reviewed.

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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/9-million-people-incorrect-email-approved-student-loan/story?id=9470249

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/11/10/statement-by-white-house-pre

ss-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-on-the-district-courts-ruling-on-the-biden-harris-administrations-student-de

bt-relief-program/

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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-an

nounces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/

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-aid-programs.htm

Accenture went on to apologize, concede that its representations to borrowers were “inaccurate,”

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Protection Center recently wrote in a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, errors like

the one Accenture made are costly, unacceptable, and likely violative of borrowers’ legal

protections.

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clear gap in the consumer protection guardrails that currently surround Accenture’s participation

in the student debt system.

consumers each bring it clearly within the scope of CFPB supervision.

The CFPB already has both the tools and the duty to protect consumers from large, reckless, and

heretofore unaccountable participants in the student loan system such as Accenture. In particular,

“the requirements of Federal consumer financial law,” “obtaining information about [their]

consumers and to markets . . . .”

The CFPA further specifies that the set of institutions covered by this supervisory regime

includes, among other firms, any “larger participant” in a variety of consumer financial markets

or any company that the CFPB “has reasonable cause to determine . . . is engaging, or has

engaged, in conduct that poses risks to consumers with regard to the offering or provision of

consumer financial products or services. . . .”

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Id.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/5514 (emphasis added)

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https://protectborrowers.org/letter-to-the-department-of-education-calling-for-accountability-following-acce

ntures-communication-failure-impacting-9-million-borrowers/

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https://www.businessinsider.in/policy/economy/news/9-million-student-loan-borrowers-got-an-email-in-nov

artment-is-issuing-corrections-/articleshow/95968823.cms

In 2013, the CFPB published a rule enumerating the definition of a “larger participant” in the

student loan servicing market.

loan payments (or receiving notification of payments) and applying payments to the borrower's

account pursuant to the terms of the post-secondary education loan or of the contract governing

the servicing; (2) during periods when no payments are required, maintaining account records

and communicating with borrowers on behalf of loan holders; or (3) interactions with borrowers,

including activities to help prevent default, conducted to facilitate the foregoing activities” in

connection with both federal and private student loans.

The rule further established that a

company is a larger participant in the student loan servicing market “if its account volume

exceeds one million.”

“Account volume” is defined as “the number of accounts for which an

entity and its affiliated companies were considered to perform student loan servicing as of

market. The Bureau’s 2013 rule is expansive, defining student loan servicing not just as the

“interactions with a borrower to facilitate the core servicing activities of receiving and remitting

payments or maintaining records and communicating about them with a borrower” (emphasis

added). Simply by sending the November 2022 email described above, Accenture was

interacting with borrowers during a period when no payments were required, thereby arguably

satisfying both the second and third prongs of the CFPB’s definition of “student loan servicing.”

More generally, it is not disputed that Accenture’s servicing missives—erroneous or

not—reached several million people, far more than would be necessary to cross the “account

volume” threshold laid out in the CFPB’s 2013 rule. Moreover, these cancellation emails are

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Accenture describes the services it offers FSA by saying, “Borrowers can call customer service and be

immediately connected to an agent with access to all relevant information. They can get immediate

support from a virtual assistant wherever and whenever they wish. They can visit a single website or use

a feature-rich mobile app. They can receive personalized updates via email or text.” See

https://www.accenture.com/us-en/case-studies/us-federal-government/simplifying-financial-aid

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Id.

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Id.

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https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/12/06/2013-29145/defining-larger-participants-of-the-stu

dent-loan-servicing-market

Even if Accenture did not cross the larger participant threshold for CFPB supervision, it would

nevertheless be subject to the agency’s supervisory regime via the risks it poses to consumers. As

noted above, the set of institutions covered by the CFPB’s supervisory tool includes, inter alia,

any non-bank that the CFPB “has reasonable cause to determine . . . is engaging, or has engaged,

in conduct that poses risks to consumers with regard to the offering or provision of consumer

financial products or services. . . .”

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The CFPB recently invoked this previously “dormant”

authority to begin supervising a broad range of risky non-bank financial firms.

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Further, the

federal student loan debt.

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This breakdown could hardly have come at a worse time, as tens of millions of federal student

loan borrowers are slated to re-enter repayment in 2023.

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Most of these borrowers will be

receiving their first student loan bill in more than three years, and many will be making their first

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https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1595150070285885440?

https://studentaid.gov/data-center

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https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_public-release-of-decisions-and-orders_procedural-rul

e_2022-04.pdf

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nk-companies-posing-risks-to-consumers/

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https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/5514

er-service-in-government/.

payment ever. Successful execution of the return to repayment will require, at a minimum, that

difficulty resuming their payment sequence, all due to Accenture’s incompetence.

The CFPB cannot and does not have to allow this outcome to arise. Given Accenture’s track

record, the CFPB should immediately designate the company as a systemically important firm

that requires risk-based CFPB supervision. Accenture has already demonstrated that it poses a

danger to federal student loan borrowers. As the nation’s top consumer watchdog, the CFPB

must apply the framework it has developed for supervising large, risky student loan servicers.

* * *

It is long overdue for the CFPB to exercise its authority to supervise Accenture. Millions of

student loan borrowers are counting on it to do so.

Sincerely,

Student Borrower Protection Center

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https://protectborrowers.org/the-system-is-broken-what-more-than-a-decade-of-litigation-reveals-about-th

e-state-of-the-student-loan-industry/