# 2025-00565: Government Scrambles to Understand How Venmo Actually Works 2025-00565, Electronic Fund Transfers Through Accounts Established Primarily for Personal, Family, or Household Purposes Using Emerging Payment Mechanisms, is a Federal Register proposed rule from an unnamed agency published 2025-01-15; PRIA reads it as touching household money (as of 2026-06-11). - Canonical: https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2025-00565 - As of: 2026-06-11 - Plain-text twin of the page above; the HTML and this file carry the same facts. ## Facts - Document number: 2025-00565 - Title: Electronic Fund Transfers Through Accounts Established Primarily for Personal, Family, or Household Purposes Using Emerging Payment Mechanisms - Type: Proposed Rule - Agencies: unknown - Citation: unknown - Published: 2025-01-15 - Effective: unknown - Comments close: not stated - Significant: no - Touches household money: yes - Regulation identifier numbers: none - Last updated: 2026-06-11 ## In one line Government Scrambles to Understand How Venmo Actually Works ## Summary The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is proposing new rules to help companies and investors understand how electronic fund transfers work with new payment tools for personal and household accounts. This means clearer guidelines for sending money and making purchases using emerging payment methods. If you’re involved in these payments, get ready to share your thoughts by March 31, 2025, and stay tuned for how this might affect your money moves. ## Abstract In light of interest by electronic fund transfer system market participants to offer new types of products to transfer funds and make purchases through accounts established primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is proposing this interpretive rule to assist companies, investors, and other market participants evaluating existing statutory and regulatory requirements governing electronic fund transfers (EFTs). ## Effects PRIA read - Stablecoins Count as “Funds”: benefit, high. The CFPB says the term “funds” under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) can include assets that act like money, including stablecoins and other fungible digital assets used as a medium of exchange or to pay for goods and services. If you hold or use such assets in an account for personal, fami… - Game, Wallet, Rewards Accounts May Be “Accounts”: benefit, medium. The CFPB explains that “other consumer asset accounts” can include video game accounts, virtual currency wallets, and credit card rewards points accounts when they function like checking or savings accounts (for example, can buy goods from multiple merchants, withdraw funds, or do person-to-person… - Nonbank Providers Can Be “Financial Institutions”: cost, medium. The CFPB reiterates that a “financial institution” under EFTA includes nonbank entities that directly or indirectly hold consumer accounts or issue access devices. If your business holds consumer balances or issues access devices for personal accounts, you may be treated as a financial institution… - Providers Must Meet EFTA Consumer Duties: benefit, high. The CFPB notes that financial institutions subject to EFTA and Regulation E must follow duties like investigating errors, limiting consumer liability for unauthorized transfers, and providing initial and periodic disclosures and change-in-terms notices. Providers of emerging-payment accounts used f… - Securities Exception Narrowly Defined: mixed, low. EFTA and Regulation E contain securities and commodities exceptions for transfers whose primary purpose is buying or selling securities or commodities regulated by the SEC or CFTC. But the CFPB says those exceptions do not automatically exclude situations where securities or commodity positions are… - Safe Harbor for Good‑Faith Compliance: benefit, medium. The CFPB notes that by operation of EFTA section 916(d), no liability under EFTA sections 916 or 917 would apply to any act done in good faith in conformity with a final interpretive rule. That means firms that follow the final rule in good faith would be protected from certain later liability unde… ## Related documents - [2026-20735](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20735): Extensions of Credit to Insiders, 2026-10-09 - [2026-20790](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20790): Application of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 to the Refunded Portion of Certain Federal Refun…, 2026-10-09 - [2026-20721](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20721): Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods: Enforcement Policy for Certain Retail Food Establishments and Restauran…, 2026-10-09 - [2026-20650](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20650): Low-Value Shipments, 2026-10-08 - [2026-20660](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20660): Optional Practical Training Fees, 2026-10-08 - [2026-20677](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2026-20677): Airworthiness Directives; Various Helicopters, 2026-10-08 ## Sources - [2025-00565 on federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/15/2025-00565/electronic-fund-transfers-through-accounts-established-primarily-for-personal-family-or-household) - [2025-00565 as published (PDF)](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-01-15/pdf/2025-00565.pdf) ## Related - [Previous: 2025-00330, Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for the Norther…](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2025-00330) - [Next: 2025-00615, Federal Acquisition Regulation: Small Business Participation on Certain Multipl…](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2025-00615) - [All Federal Register documents](https://policyrisk.com/federal-register) Source: PRIA, https://policyrisk.com/federal-register/2025-00565 (as of 2026-06-11).