Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Krugman: Democrats should not cooperate with Trump on a 10% interest rate credit card cap unless Trump restores the CFPB

Here. Meanwhile, WaPo’s Michelle Singletary calls Trump’s proposal ridiculous and says it’s dead on arrival, saying “If the administration were truly interested in affordability, it would have strengthened the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rather than kneecapping it.” Not surprisingly, the bank trade organizations say the 10% cap would “reduce credit availability and be devastating for millions of […]

Trump renews his call for a 10% interest rate cap on credit cards, drawing industry opposition

KEN SWEET and SEUNG MIN KIM have the story for the Associated Press here. The industry argument is that issuers would lose money on higher-risk borrowers at that rate and so would be unwilling to provide credit cards to them. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion […]

American Banker: Vought capitulates to court order, asks for CFPB funding

Here, by Kate Berry (behind paywall but available on Lexis). Excerpt: Last month, District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Vought‘s refusal to request funding for the CFPB violates an existing injunction. She found that the combined earnings of the Fed means “everything the Federal Reserve earns.” Her order made it clear that a failure to seek […]

Does ECOA bar discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity?

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act bars discrimination in consumer lending on the basis of sex but does not explicitly apply to sexual orientation or gender identity, as some state laws do. Back in 2021, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County interpreting Title VII, the employment discrimination statute, to forbid such discrimination, […]

The Trump administration’s inconsistent positions on whether discrimination is unfair

Regular readers of the blog will know that the Biden CFPB took the position that discrimination is unfair within the meaning of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB’s UDAAP statute. After the Chamber of Commerce sued to block that interpretation and won before a Trump-nominated judge, the CFPB appealed. But before the appeal could be […]

Politico: How gutting the CFPB clashes with affordability concerns

Here. The piece says that eliminating the CFPB: * * *  put[s] the agency at odds with the Trump administration’s favorite way to counter the souring mood on the economy: offering cold, hard cash (think of “warrior checks” for service members and “Trump accounts” for babies). As of October, the bureau has dropped 22 pending […]

Caruso paper on what a CFPB that cared about consumers could do now about overdraft fees

Kaitlin Ainsworth Caruso of Maine has written Back to the Drawing Board? Overdraft fees, the Congressional Review Act, and the CFPB’s Path Back to Consumer Protection. Here’s the abstract: In late 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adopted a rule aimed at a longtime pain point for consumers: high, sometimes unpredictable, overdraft fees. The CFPB […]

Parrillo paper about which industries sue their regulator

Nicholas R. Parrillo of Yale has written Administrative Law as a Choice of Business Strategy: Comparing the Industries Who Have Routinely Sued Their Regulators with the Industries Who Rarely Have. Here’s the abstract: For some large and powerful industries, it has long been normal and even routine for businesses to sue their federal regulator. For other […]