by Jeff Sovern As we have previously discussed, the CFPB takes the position when supervising banks that discrimination is unfair within the meaning of the Consumer Financial Protection Act. As reported by Bloomberg's Evan Weinberger, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, and others have now sued the CFPB in […]
Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
by Jeff Sovern As you may know, the US Chamber of Commerce has been running commercials attacking the CFPB and its director, Rohit Chopra. If you are going to read further, I suggest you first click on the link to watch the commercial. And now, some comments: The title of the commercial is "The CFPB […]
Matthew A. Bruckner of Howard and CJ Ryan of Louisville and the American Bar Foundation have written The Magic of Fintech? Insights for a Regulatory Agenda from Analyzing Student Loan Complaints Filed with the CFPB, Dickinson Law Review, Forthcoming 2022. Here’s the abstract: This paper looks at consumer complaints about student loan lenders and servicers […]
by Jeff Sovern Three House Republicans have accused CFPB director Rohit Chopra of “colluding with states” and “conspiring with state agencies.” And yet, the Trump-nominated CFPB director Kathy Kraninger collaborated with state attorneys general, as for example, in the Bureau’s settlement with Nationstar Mortgage. I wonder if the legislators complained about Kraninger colluding with states.
by Jeff Sovern Here, behind a pay wall. Excerpt: At present, banks generally are only required to repay consumers for payments they didn’t authorize. The coming regulatory guidance could change that threshold by maintaining that fraudulently induced transactions, even those approved by the consumer, are considered unauthorized. That could require a bank to conduct more […]
by Jeff Sovern As the American Banker's Kate Berry reported (behind a paywall but available on Lexis), the CFPB's Spring Regulatory Agenda has been posted to the OMB's web site, rather than, as has been the Bureau's practice, the CFPB web site. Here it is: Prerule stage – Consumer Access to Financial Records, 3170-AA78 Proposed […]
The submission deadline is August 22 and the conference is December 15-16. More here.
by Jeff Sovern I am grateful to Alan Kaplinsky for commenting on two of my earlier posts, Whither Arbitration Regulation? and Why the CFPB is right that it can act against discrimination using its unfairness power. One of Alan’s posts is titled Why the CFPB’s expansion of its UDAAP authority to target discrimination requires rulemaking. In the other […]
by Jeff Sovern Every six months, the CFPB director testifies before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Each committee member gets five minutes to question the director, a process that collectively takes hours and this last time covered a wide variety of topics, including topics over which the CFPB lacks power, […]
by Jeff Sovern Recently the CFPB announced that in conducting supervisory operations, it takes the position that discrimination is unfair and so violates the Consumer Financial Protection Act. You might think this is pretty straightforward: most of us would think odious discrimination is unfair. Discrimination easily qualifies as unfair under the statutory requirements of unfairness, […]

