Here. An excerpt: In the Big Business narrative, arbitration is a far better place for consumers than a nasty-wasty court. Lack of choice is a better choice! Well, this week, a big, fat government report blew that fiction away. * * * Companies, it turns out, weren't using mandatory arbitration clauses to protect us. […]
Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
The following consumer advocates will be live-tweeting today's CFPB field hearing on arbitration, which gets underway at 11am. Ellen Taverna, NACA – @NACAdvocate Christine Hines, Public Citizen – @chrhines Michelle Schwartz, Alliance for Justice – @SchwartzAFJ NCLC – @NCLC4consumers AFR – @realbankreform You should also be able to watch a web livestream of the hearing here.
Here's the text of CFPB Director Richard Cordray's remarks on the arbitration report, to be delivered at today's field hearing in Newark. He summarizes the legal backdrop to the Bureau's report, its empirical approach, and its key findings (which I've highlighted in bold). Well worth reading in full. Prepared Remarks of Richard Cordray Director […]
by Jeff Sovern The American Banker had an article this week, Could the Fight Over Cost-Benefit Analysis Kill Reg Relief? that made some interesting points. After noting that Senate Banking Committee Chair Richard Shelby advocates more cost-benefit analysis, the author, Victoria Finkle, wrote: "The idea of rigorous cost-benefit analysis is like motherhood and apple pie […]
By guest blogger Peter A. Holland I have covered the NCLC's excellent proposal to ban the sale of time-barred debt here. The NCLC recommendations point to the larger problem that some banks sell off their worst, most unreliable, least collectible, most dubious accounts for literally pennies on the dollar (sometimes less), pursuant to broad disclaimers of […]
by Jeff Sovern Brian posted earlier that the CFPB has announced a field hearing on arbitration for March 10. Because the CFPB often schedules such hearings when it announces something, it is probably going to release the next installment in its arbitration report (maybe the final installment) in conjunction with the hearing. As Brian also […]
By guest blogger Peter A. Holland In a time of limited resources, perhaps a new model is emerging of joint CFPB/State Attorney General enforcement actions. The recent joint action by the Bureau and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh provides a nice case study. Recently, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau […]
Here. An excerpt: At the center of the regulations being considered, the people familiar with the matter said, is a requirement that lenders assess whether borrowers can repay loans — interest and principal — at the end of a two-week period by examining their income, other debts and their payment history. Few people can, the […]
by Jeff Sovern As previously reported in The New York Times and CFPB Monitor, a CFPB report based on data in the National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers has found that nearly half of borrowers don't shop for a mortgage. The new report,taken together with my earlier survey of mortgage brokers finding that consumers virtually never back […]
The President highlighted consumer issues several times in his speech tonight. Here's some of the relevant text: On Dodd-Frank and the CFPB: "We believed that sensible regulations could prevent another crisis, shield families from ruin, and encourage fair competition. Today, we have new tools to stop taxpayer-funded bailouts and a new consumer watchdog to protect […]