Earlier this week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a proposal revising portions of
Essentially, this proposal is aimed at narrowly excluding bank tellers from the originator definition. It does not appear to provide any relief to other newly designated originators, such as telemarketers, loan officer assistants, or non-producing managers. Indeed, such persons generally make some level of assessment of the borrowers financial circumstances and certainly discuss the company's credit terms.
For those entities proposing to use this narrow window to avoid the impacts of becoming an originator, it is advisable to script out what a teller says to a customer to avoid crossing any lines that would render the person an originator.