Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Anticonsumer Advocates Try to Talk Trump into Firing CFPB Director Cordray

by Jeff Sovern According to a CNBC story, Trump wants to sack consumer protection chief but is afraid of turning him into hero for the left, during the signing of the resolution to rescind the CFPB arbitration rule, a session that, as far as I know, was attended only by representatives of the financial services industry, members […]

Is There Any Chance the President Will Allow the CFPB Arbitration Rule to Go Into Effect?

by Jeff Sovern Allison blogged earlier about CFPB Director Cordray's letter to the president urging him to allow the CFPB arbitration rule to go into effect.  While it would be wonderful if the president did so, there are many reasons to think he won't.  Among these: as regular readers will know, Vice President Pence broke […]

Updated Version of Why We Need to Save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Here, in The Conversation. Excerpt: The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would cripple the CFPB by, for example, taking away the power it used to fine Wells Fargo for opening illegal accounts and concealing its complaint database from public view. In other words, it would force the bureau to sit idly by as financial institutions lie to […]

Senate Could Vote on CRA Resolution to Block Arbitration Rule Tonight . . .

by Jeff Sovern . . .  or  it could come later in the week. Or not. My speculation is that the Senate leadership will call the vote if they think they have the votes to pass the resolution but otherwise they will let it go until closer to the deadline. So the real question is […]

Am Banker Reports on Economists Who Are Critical of the OCC Claims in the CFPB-OCC Data Dispute

by Jeff Sovern The article, by Kate Berry and Ian McKendry, is headlined Fight to kill CFPB arbitration rule could rest on whose data is right. Here's some of what the article says about the OCC claims, though the article has more than I can insert here. "The uncertainty of the OCC's estimate is very large, […]

Politico Got Two Statisticians to Look at the CFPB-OCC Arbitration Statistical Dispute

by Jeff Sovern The story is headlined 'Plague on both your houses': Cordray, Noreika get scolding from statisticians. Excerpt: " * * * There isn’t strong evidence either way,” said Bruce Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago. “There is weak evidence that says more than likely there is a positive effect on the cost […]

The CFPB and Data Breaches, Plus WSJ: Equifax Hack Drives GOP Bill to Overhaul Credit Bureaus

by Jeff Sovern The WSJ article is here.  Excerpt: Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina introduced a bill to require the three major credit firms—Equifax, Experian PLC and TransUnion—to submit to regular federal cybersecurity reviews for the first time. All three companies also would have to phase out their use of Social Security numbers to verify consumers’ […]

Two Reasons Comptroller Norieka is Wrong About Arbitration Clauses

by Jeff Sovern Acting Comptroller of the Currency and former bank lawyer Keith Norieka has an op-ed in The Hill, Senate should vacate the harmful consumer banking arbitration rule, that is seriously flawed.  I'm going to write about two of those flaws here. First, Norieka concludes by writing: Instead of mandating only one way to resolve […]

David Dayen in The Intercept: IN NEW LAWSUIT, CORPORATIONS BAND TOGETHER TO STOP CONSUMERS FROM BANDING TOGETHER

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Lots of irony in this one, as you can tell from the headline.  A sample: Eighteen groups representing thousands of corporations and banks filed the lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last Friday in federal court in Dallas. Oddly, they did not attempt to individually resolve the dispute through an arbitration process, […]