Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

CFPB plays Scrooge and says paycheck advance loans aren’t loans

The Administration claims that the CFPB will have to shut down next year because it can’t ask the Federal Reserve for funds if the CFPB decides that the Federal Reserve isn’t operating at a profit (a claim being challenged in 3 different actions currently pending in federal district courts in California and the District of […]

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 […]

Congressional analysis details CFPB’s dire financial state

The Congressional Research Service, the research and analysis arm of Congress, last Friday released an updated summary to its report on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget. This update includes discussion on the budget reconciliation (P.L. 119-21) passed in July that drastically reduces the CFPB’s funding that it receives from the Federal Reserve. The agency’s […]

New CFPB Director Nomination

Reuters is reporting that Stuart Levenbach has been nominated to serve as the next Director of the CFPB. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Levenbach appears to have no experience in consumer protection or consumer finance whatsoever. According to a February 2025 release announcing his appointment to a position at OMB: Prior to OMB, Dr. Stuart Levenbach was the […]

(De)Regulatory Assault on Fair Lending

The past week has seen the announcement of two proposals to weaken mechanisms for identifying and combatting discriminatory lending practices. Last week, the CFPB issued a proposal to amend Regulation B under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which would eliminate disparate impact claims, significantly narrow the prohibition on statements that would discourage applicants or potential […]

CFPB, debt collectors challenge state medical debt credit reporting protections

The debt collection industry, through its trade group ACA International and Fresno Credit Bureau, sued a Colorado official this week, seeking to nullify a state law that stops medical debt from being included on consumer credit reports. The debt collectors claim that the Colorado law is preempted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the […]

Court stays CFPB Open Banking Rule

In 2024, the CFPB issued a rule requiring financial institutions to share a consumer’s personal financial data with other providers at no cost, upon the consumer’s request. Members of the banking industry sued. After the change in administration, the CFPB informed the court it agreed with industry that the rule exceeded the agency’s authority, and […]

CFPB finalizes FCRA preemption interpretive rule

In May 2025, the CFPB rescinded a 2022 interpretive rule, which had expressed the agency’s view that the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s preemption provision has “a narrow sweep,” which allows for substantial State regulation of consumer reports and consumer reporting agencies. Today, a new interpretive rule appeared for public inspection at the Federal Register, adopting a […]

FTC’s defunct CARS Rule finds new life in California

California car buyers have new protections from too-common bait and switch car dealer tactics in a newly passed law signed yesterday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Much of the law is modeled after the Federal Trade Commission’s Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) rule that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated in January. The California CARS […]