The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has terminated its consent order against Regions Bank, the Birmingham, Alabama-based regional lender, after confirming that the bank had fulfilled all obligations arising from a 2022 enforcement action related to illegal surprise overdraft fees. The termination, which took effect on 1 July 2025, waives any remaining obligations and alleged non-compliance, formally closing a chapter that began when the CFPB originally issued the consent order on 28 September 2022 following an investigation into the bank's overdraft fee practices.
The 2022 consent order required Regions Bank to refund at least $141 million to customers who had been charged surprise overdraft fees and to pay a $50 million civil money penalty to the CFPB's victims relief fund. The bank has now met both financial requirements, and the CFPB's termination decision confirms that the bureau considers Regions to have fully discharged its obligations under the enforcement action, including the consumer remediation programme and the penalty payment to the federal fund established to compensate victims of financial institution misconduct.
THE NATURE OF THE OVERDRAFT FEE VIOLATION
The CFPB's original enforcement action found that Regions Bank charged customers overdraft fees on transactions that appeared to have sufficient funds available when those transactions were initiated, a practice the bureau characterised as illegal and deceptive. The bank levied these charges on transactions that ultimately cleared despite customers having what appeared to be covered account balances at the point of initiation, creating a systematic gap between what customers could reasonably expect to pay and what they were ultimately charged without any notice or disclosure at the point of the transaction.
The practice ran from August 2018 through July 2021, a period of approximately three years during which affected customers were charged fees they had no reasonable basis to anticipate when they initiated their transactions. The $141 million refund obligation was sized to compensate the population of customers who incurred those charges during the defined period, a cohort spread across Regions Bank's retail branch and account footprint in the south-eastern and mid-western United States. The CFPB's enforcement approach required the bank to identify and remediate the full affected population rather than relying on customers to claim refunds individually.
Regions Bank, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, operates with approximately $160 billion in assets, making it one of the larger regional banking institutions in the United States. The scale of the institution meant that the 2022 enforcement action attracted significant industry attention as part of the CFPB's broader campaign to address surprise overdraft fee practices across the sector, an effort that saw the bureau take action against several large regional lenders during the same period.
COMPLIANCE COMPLETED AND ORDER CLOSED
The CFPB's termination of the consent order confirms that Regions Bank has completed the full remediation programme required under the 2022 enforcement action, encompassing the payment of the $50 million civil penalty and the delivery of at least $141 million in consumer refunds. The waiver of remaining obligations included in the termination provides the bank with a definitive regulatory conclusion to the matter, removing the ongoing compliance monitoring, reporting requirements and supervisory engagement obligations that accompany active consent orders and that impose a continuing administrative burden on the affected institution.
For Regions Bank, the termination removes a material supervisory overhang that has featured in its regulatory profile since 2022. The bank now operates without the active consent order on its current record, though the underlying conduct, the enforcement action and the terms of the settlement remain part of the public record maintained by the CFPB. The outcome illustrates the standard arc of an enforcement resolution: an initial enforcement action, a defined set of remedial obligations, active supervision of compliance, and a formal termination once the regulator is satisfied that all obligations have been met in full.