The Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau desires to increase its watchdog powers to cowl digital wallets and fee apps run by corporations like Apple, Google, PayPal and Block, which shouldn’t have conventional banking operations.

The bureau proposed a rule on Tuesday that might topic giant corporations — people who course of greater than 5 million monetary transactions per yr — to the identical supervisory examinations the bureau conducts on banks and credit score unions. About 17 corporations, which collectively deal with $13 billion in transactions a yr and maintain an 88 p.c share of the market in the USA, can be topic to the rule, in accordance with a bureau official.

“Fee programs are essential infrastructure for our financial system,” mentioned Rohit Chopra, the bureau’s director. “At this time’s rule would crack down on one avenue for regulatory arbitrage by guaranteeing giant expertise corporations and different nonbank funds corporations are subjected to acceptable oversight.”

The proposed rule may take impact as quickly as subsequent yr. One of many fee trade’s largest commerce teams, the Digital Transactions Affiliation, had a reasonably gentle response to the proposal.

“E.T.A. helps the C.F.P.B.’s objectives of strong shopper protections for funds and a constant regulatory surroundings for each banks and fintechs,” mentioned Jodie Kelley, the group’s chief government. “It’s essential that the ultimate rule encourages continued innovation and competitors within the funds area.”

Banking commerce teams have lengthy pressed for nonbank corporations to face the identical sort of audits and oversight that banks do. Lindsey Johnson, the chief government of the Shopper Bankers Affiliation, known as the proposed rule “a step in the precise route.”

Mr. Chopra has been open about his want to use larger regulatory scrutiny to giant expertise corporations. Final month, he warned concerning the “surveillance and censorship” that such corporations can impose on customers’ monetary transactions, citing the wealth of private particulars that may be gleaned from the fee path recorded by apps like PayPal’s Venmo and Block’s Money App.

A September report from the bureau spotlighted the methods Apple and Google use their dominance as cell phone makers to steer prospects towards their very own tap-to-pay digital pockets merchandise.

Customers moved $893 billion by fee providers final yr — together with digital wallets, fee apps and Zelle, a system owned by a consortium of banks — in accordance with an estimate cited by the buyer bureau, and hold billions of {dollars} saved in these apps. Individuals have been slower than customers in different international locations to undertake digital funds, however the pandemic sharply accelerated their use.

Almost 56 million customers made an in-store buy with Apple Pay — the preferred cellular fee service in the USA — in April, in accordance with the buyer bureau. Starbucks’ digital app and Google Pay, the following most generally used retail fee apps, path Apple. (The draft rule comprises language excluding fee apps that can be utilized solely with a particular retailer or mortgage servicer, which might put Starbucks outdoors the rule’s attain.)

The buyer bureau already has enforcement powers over digital fee corporations as a result of it regulates digital fund transfers, however including supervisory oversight would considerably increase its visibility into the operations of the market’s largest operators. It will permit the company to acquire and assessment detailed company data and to ship its monetary examiners to corporations’ places of work to interview workers, scrutinize insurance policies and safeguards, and flag issues as they spot them.

The general public can touch upon the 69-page proposal till a minimum of January. After that, the company can transfer to make the rules last.