Credit Acceptance Corp. has agreed to a sweeping $710 million settlement with 40 states and Washington, D.C., resolving allegations that the company pushed financially vulnerable consumers into unaffordable subprime auto loans and sold deceptive add-on products. The deal includes roughly $634 million in debt cancellation for more than 55,000 borrowers, along with restitution, civil penalties, and changes to the company’s lending and servicing practices. It also resolves related claims pending in federal court in Manhattan.

The allegations go to the heart of one of the most scrutinized areas in consumer finance: indirect auto lending.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued Humboldt Merchant Services, alleging the payment processor knowingly enabled scam operators and shell merchants to access the payments system for unauthorized billing and deceptive consumer charges. The agency’s theory is notable: rather than focusing only on the merchants that allegedly carried out the scams, the FTC is aiming at the infrastructure provider it says made those schemes possible.

According to the FTC, Humboldt processed payments for entities tied to sham businesses and billing operations that allegedly lacked legitimate merchant activity.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has proposed a notable pullback in two areas that have shaped large-bank compliance since the post-2008 reform era: resolution planning and deposit insurance assessments. If adopted, the changes would significantly ease “living will” obligations for large banks and reduce annual deposit-insurance costs by an estimated $4 billion.

Although this is not a courtroom dispute, it is the kind of regulatory shift that can drive substantial legal work across the financial sector.