Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Times: Banks Seek a Shield in Mortgage Rules

Here.  It's about the CFPB's forthcoming qualified mortgage rules. An excerpt: The rules are meant to help bolster the housing market. By shielding banks from potential litigation, policy makers contend that the industry will have a powerful incentive to make higher quality home loans. But some banking and housing specialists worry that borrowers are losing […]

House GOP Committee Attacks CFPB Head Cordray for Attending State of the Union Address

by Jeff Sovern I kid you not. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Darrell Issa, and its Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs, chaired by longtime CFPB foe Patrick McHenry, has issued a report titled THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU’S THREAT TO CREDIT ACCESS IN THE UNITED STATES.  Here […]

CFPB Announces Proposed Policy for Letting Companies Test Disclosure Programs

by Jeff Sovern Here.  The idea is that a company can apply to the Bureau for permission to try different disclosures and the disclosures can then be evaluated, and perhaps adopted.  In its statement announcing the proposal, the Bureau says: When deciding whether or not to grant a company a waiver from current disclosure requirements, the […]

Major CFPB Report on Credit Reporting Agencies

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Two points from the Executive Summary, though there's quite a bit more than this:  The NCRAs have created an automated system for handling consumer disputes and forwarding them to data furnishers. Through this automated system – called e-OSCAR – the NCRAs provide furnishers with one or two numeric codes indicating the […]

American Banker: Lobbying CFPB on Arbitration Intensifies

Here (login required).  An excerpt: Likewise, there was initially deep skepticism inside the banking industry about the CFPB's arbitration study, and there is still a belief among industry insiders that the agency's research is likely to lead to new regulations. * * * But over the last few months, industry observers have been relatively pleasedwith they […]

Dee Pridgen Paper on the CFPB and Recent Consumer Protection Statutes

Dee Pridgen of Wyoming has written Sea Changes in Consumer Financial Protection: Stronger Agency and Stronger Laws.  I read this one before it was posted and found it particularly useful in pulling together some recent themes in consumer law and explaining how the Dodd-Frank Act's anti-predatory lending rules are based on behavioral economics, as opposed to […]

CardHub.Com Study of Credit Card Disclosures: “Federal Reserve has set an embarrassingly low bar for issuer disclosures”

Here.  Here is the key finding section of the report: The Federal Reserve has set an embarrassingly low bar for issuer disclosures, as evidenced by the 7.5% score its model disclosure received in this study. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau obviously recognized the inherent flaws with the Federal Reserve’s implemented guidelines for credit card disclosures […]

American Banker Report on Comments on Proposed Mortgage Disclosure Rules

Here.  Behind a paywall, unfortunately.  But here's a quote: In more than 2,000 letters responding to the CFPB's plan,bankers said several requirements — including a rigorous timeline for presenting borrowers with the new forms, limited deviation of estimated charges between initial and final disclosures, and an "all-in" annual percentage rate — will add constraints and […]

More From Creola Johnson on Payday Lending

Creola Johnson of Ohio State has written Congress Protected the Troops: Can the New CFPB Protect Civilians from Payday Lending? 69 Washington & Lee Law Review 649 (2012). Here's the abstract: In 2007, Congress enacted a law, commonly referred to as the Military Lending Act (MLA), which placed a 36% interest rate cap on several […]