News that an online marketplace lender extended a $28,500 loan to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the alleged San Bernardino attackers, just two weeks before the attack, has spurred House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) to announce plans to propose new terrorist financing legislation in the coming months. On December 10, 2015, Chairman Hensarling announced that such legislation will be a top priority for the coming year and that a bill will be introduced in early 2016. A day earlier, the House Financial Services Committee voted to reestablish its Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing (“Task Force”), and the Task Force requested information from the U.S. Department of the Treasury about the regulation of online lenders in the wake of the attack.
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