Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

New Book Describes the Creation of the CFPB

by Jeff Sovern Here's the blurb I provided: "Powerful interest groups seldom lose major battles in Congress, but that is exactly what happened when Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010. Larry Kirsch and Robert N. Mayer have produced, in Financial Justice: The People's Campaign to Stop Lender Abuse, an eminently readable and […]

American Banker: Supreme Court Case May Have Big Impact on CFPB

Here (but behind a paywall).  Among the points made in the article are that the recess appointment of current CFPB Director Richard Cordray is likely to expire before the Supreme Court rules and that banks could be hurt if Cordray's appointment is ruled unconstitutional because that would leave banks subject to the Bureau but not […]

Will Banks Get Out of the Deposit Advance Loan Business? If So, Is That Desirable?

by Jeff Sovern Deposit advance loans are banks' answer to payday loans.   Just like payday loans, they tend to be for short periods and high interest rates.  And just as with payday loans, consumer advocates fear that consumers get trapped in them, in the sense that many borrowers can't come up with the money to […]

House Financial Services Committee Hearing: CFPB Budget Review

by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing titled CFPB Budget Review.  You can listen to the webcast here.  It seems to be part of the continuing Republican attack on the Bureau.  The American Banker reported on the hearing here (behind a paywall).  The article points out that Republicans were criticial […]

Reports on FTC-CFPB Debt Collection Roundtable

On Thursday, the FTC and CFPB held a joint roundtable titled Life of a Debt: Data Integrity in Debt Collection.  Journalist Fred Williams has a report at the Taking Charge blog. An except: At Thursday's  meeting, [debt buyer and industry association president Richard] Munroe and other debt buyers didn't repeat the argument the collection  industry […]

In Lawsuit Filed Today, CFPB Rolls Out Its “Abusive” Practices Authority For the First Time

Big news: The CFPB today filed the first lawsuit that invokes the agency's authority under the Dodd-Frank Act to police practices that are not just unfair or deceptive, but "abusive."  Observers of the agency have been eagerly anticipating the first use of that authority, which is new to the world of consumer law. The Bureau's Action […]

The Constitutional Cloud Over the CFPB

Carter Dougherty of Bloomberg has a must-read story on the practical effects of the constitutional controversy over Rich Cordray's appointment. The D.C. Circuit's ruling in Noel Canning, he reports, "has hampered the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, slowing some enforcement, impeding recruitment of a second-in-command, and delaying joint ventures with the states." Among other things, the Bloomberg […]

Daniel Schwarcz Paper on Post-Sale Monitoring of Financial Products

Daniel Schwarcz of Minnesota has written Monitoring, Reporting, and Recalling Defective Financial Products, University of Chicago Legal Forum (2013).  Here is the abstract: In recent years, innovations in consumer financial protection have drawn heavily from the law governing the safety of tangible products.   This short essay, prepared for a symposium entitled "Frontiers of Consumer Protection," […]