The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the United States is being sued for treating digital wallets as banks.

ChainCatcher news, two technology trade organizations, TechNet and NetChoice, have filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the United States, challenging its regulatory practices of treating payment applications and digital wallets as banks. The lawsuit opposes the new regulations issued by the CFPB in December, which aims to expand regulation of ‘general digital consumer payment applications’, mainly targeting large payment applications and non-bank financial service providers such as digital wallets. Although the rule does not involve cryptocurrency wallet providers or decentralized wallets, its target is large non-bank companies. Chris Marchese, litigation director at NetChoice, said that the CFPB’s power expansion undermines the rule of law and may result in price increases and reduced choices.