Federal Reserve Board takes action against Green Dot

The Federal Reserve Board has taken action to address consumer compliance breakdowns by Green Dot, fining the firm $44 million for numerous unfair and deceptive practices and a deficient consumer compliance risk management program.

Green Dot violated consumer law in its marketing, selling, and servicing of prepaid debit card products, and its offering of tax return preparation payment services. Green Dot failed to adequately disclose the tax refund processing fee for tax preparation services offered on a third party's website. The firm also blocked access to accounts of legitimate customers receiving unemployment benefits and lacked reasonable policies and procedures to help those customers cure those blocks. In addition, Green Dot did not maintain effective consumer compliance risk management and anti-money laundering programs.

To read the full press release please visit the Federal Reserve site by clicking here.