by Jeff Sovern
Acting CFPB director Mick Mulvaney famously wrote that he would not push the envelope. He explained:
That entire governing philosophy of pushing the envelope frightens me a little. We are government employees, and we work for the people. That means everyone: those who use credit cards and those who provide the credit; those who take out loans and those who make them * * *
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It is not appropriate for any government entity to “push the envelope” when it comes into conflict with our citizens. We have the power to do damage to people that could linger for years and cost them their jobs, their savings and their homes.
But if you look at what 50 public interest groups say, it seems as if Mulvaney is indeed pushing the envelope, and not to help consumers. Here's an excerpt from their statement:
A coalition of 50 public interest groups today sharply criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal to gut important consumer protection rules, especially for fintech companies, arguing the agency does not have the authority to create potentially unlimited exemptions from the very regulations that the CFPB is obligated to enforce.
The CFPB is exceeding its authority under the law that created the agency and would set a dangerous precedent with its “disclosure sandbox” policy, its label for granting companies exemptions from disclosure rules. Instead of conducting limited, carefully drawn trials of model disclosures that could improve consumer understanding, the CFPB would allow firms to obfuscate or eliminate important information in the name of “financial innovation,” a label that was often applied to defend practices in mortgage lending that led to the 2008 crisis.
“The reckless and unlawful scope of the CFPB's proposal is breathtaking,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. “The CFPB has no authority to allow ‘trials’ that go on for years and years and that allow entire industries to skip important consumer disclosures, such as the total cost of a loan or the required notice that the loan price was marked up due to information on the consumer's credit report. The CFPB’s proposal would not be confined to consumer testing, which recruits consumers to review and react to sample disclosures as if they were entering into a transaction. Instead, it would allow companies to experiment with or dispense with disclosures in real transactions with real consumers.”
