Here. An excerpt: In late March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the consumer watchdog agency dreamt up by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—issued new, voluntary guidelines aimed at ensuring car dealerships are not illegally ripping off minorities. Since then, 13 Senate Democrats, including Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.); and 22 House Dems, including Reps. […]
Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
by Jeff Sovern I'm finally getting around to reading the CFPB's December 12 report, Arbitration Study: Preliminary Results, about which Brian blogged here. Though the Bureau does not make much of it, perhaps because the natural experiment has some flaws (as natural experiments often do), the CFPB Study sheds some light on the impact of arbitration […]
WaPo has the article about the past and present, A watchdog grows up: The inside story of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the Times covers the future in Federal Consumer Agency Ponders Its Next Crusades. Both are worth a read. (HT: Ed Mierzwinski)
The CFPB statement is here; Times coverage here. From the Bureau's statement: Some consumers were led to believe that if they bought the Account Protector product, their minimum monthly payment would be cancelled if they experienced a qualifying life event. In reality, the benefit payment would be limited to 2.5 percent of the consumer’s outstanding […]
Robert L. Clarke of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason University (Zywicki notes in an "about the authors" that he is a former director of the FTC's Office of Policy Planning but omits his links to the industry) have written Payday Lending, Bank Overdraft Protection, and Fair Competition at the Consumer […]
The Times today published an editorial,What You Don’t Know About Mortgages, about the CFPB's new mortgage TILA/RESPA disclosures. Though the editorial praised some aspects of the disclosure rules, it also called them disappointing, stating [T]he forms fall short in the crucial task of helping consumers assess and compare the total cost of various loans. Without […]
Last week, the CFPB filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit in Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Indians et al. v. New York Department of Financial Services, a case in which online tribal payday lenders are challenging regulation by New York State. The CFPB's brief takes issue with the lenders' argument that Title X of the Dodd-Frank Act and […]
by Deepak Gupta Jeff and Brian have already posted on the news of a final settlement in Mount Holly. Although we've known all along that a settlement was likely, this is still big news. Let's put this in perspective: For the second time in just two years, an eleventh-hour settlement before oral argument has denied the […]
by Deepak Gupta If you'll be in New Orleans tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 15), I hope you'll drop by the Hyatt French Quarter for the Louisiana Bar's consumer law seminar. Among other things, Professor Dalie Jimenez of the University of Connecticut (a former CFPB colleague) will discuss her research on debt buyers. At 4pm, you can watch […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a piece about the CFPB's public database of consumer complaints. This excerpt particularly caught my eye: The agency's approach rankles some in the financial industry who say the publication of complaints leads to an unfair and overly negative view of companies. They fault the CFPB […]