Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

How Mulvaney Can Sabotage the CFPB’s Payday Lending Rule

by Jeff Sovern Last month, Interim Director Mulvaney announced that the Bureau may reconsider the Bureau's payday lending rule. But he can't just rescind it. That would require a full notice-and-comment rulemaking, and that would take longer than Mulvaney will be at the CFPB (under the Vacancies Act, he is limited to 210 days). True, […]

Consumer Financial Regulation Scholars’ Amicus Brief in CPFB Leadership Case

Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown, Patricia A. McCoy of Boston College Law School, Kathleen C. Engel of Suffolk, and Dalié Jiménez of California-Irvine, Connecticut School of Law; and Harvard's Center on the Legal Profession have authored Brief of Amici Curiae Consumer Financial Regulation Scholars in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant Leandra English, English v. Trump, No. 18-5007 (D.C. […]

NACA Survey Finds CFPB Fully Immersed as Key Resource and Partner for Distressed Consumers in Financial Marketplace

Quoting from the announcement: In its six-year existence, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proved itself integral to curbing predatory lending and other practices that harm American consumers every day, a survey from the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) shows.  The survey found that consumers and their advocates enforce and rely on the […]

Consumers are biggest losers of Trump’s ongoing war on regulations

by Jeff Sovern My latest op-ed. Excerpt: It seems unlikely that the bureau would take on a bank like Wells Fargo for [opening unauthorized accounts] or pursue many of Cordray’s other actions now that Mulvaney is in charge. His boss has even praised a bill passed by the House that would strip the CFPB of the authority […]

Addressing Income Inequality Through Consumer Law: the Van Loo Argument

by Jeff Sovern Income inequality causes numerous problems for the United States, including lower economic growth. Probably the most widely-mentioned solution to income inequality is taxation, But Rory Van Loo of Boston University argues that consumer law also poses a potent weapon against income inequality in his paper, Consumer Law As Tax Alternative. One intriguing aspect […]

Maybe It DOES Matter if the CFPB Looks into the Equifax Breach–and the CFPB Says It Is Doing So

by Jeff Sovern Yesterday I expressed doubt about whether it matters if the CFPB backs off on investigating Equifax. Now I'm wondering if I was wrong to do so.  I hadn't given enough thought to the CFPB's supervisory responsibilities over collection bureaus. Vox has an article which reports: A CFPB spokesperson said in an email to […]

Does the CFPB’s Putting the Equifax Probe on Ice Matter?

by Jeff Sovern The answer to the question is that I'm not sure it does. Brian reported earlier today that Reuters is saying that the CFPB has put its Equifax probe on ice. But Reuters also reports that Equifax says it is under investigation by every state AG, that the FTC is investigating, and that […]

Another Name Surfaces to Run the CFPB: Dan Iannicola

by Jeff Sovern Ian McKendry has a report in the American Banker, Is Trump team moving to political middle in CFPB director search?, that mentions Iannicola, who served in the Treasury Department in the second Bush administration and is currently CEO of the Financial Literacy Group. Among their clients is the CFPB. The article also notes that another candidate, […]

Mulvaney Pushed the Envelope by Misquoting Cordray in Memo Saying the Bureau Has Pushed Its Last Envelope

by Jeff Sovern Allied Progress has the story. It seems that Mulvaney incorrectly attributed to his predecessor a statement that the Bureau pushed the envelope. That is according to Michael Grunwald, the author of the Politico article containing the original statement about pushing the envelope. Mulvaney's memo is available here. Update: The WSJ, which had […]