Republican Senators Threaten to Undo any CFPB Rules Issued Under an English Regime. Last week, nine senators said they would work to invalidate any new rules promulgated by the bureau if Leandra English prevails in her attempts to unseat and replace the bureau’s acting director, Mick Mulvaney.... Mulvaney Taps Hensarling Aide. Is the Congressman Next? CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney has named House Financial Services Committee Senior Counsel Brian Johnson to serve him as a senior adviser, late-breaking press reports indicated. ...

The new boss at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – Mick Mulvaney – wasted no time this week in beginning to steer a new course for the controversial agency.

CFPB Director Richard Cordray last week informed bureau staff that he is resigning. He made no mention of his future plans, but it has been widely expected for months, if not years, that he would run for governor of Ohio. Cordray is the first officially named and confirmed director of the bureau, but he encountered controversy from the start, as President Obama tried to make him a recess appointment, which was later declared to be an unconstitutional move on Obama’s part. However, the Democrat-controlled Senate at the time reaffirmed the president’s selection of Cordray, rendering various legal challenges moot. He was preceded at the helm by Raj Date, who served as a special advisor after being chosen by then-Harvard professor ...

Upon last week’s news of CFPB Director Richard Cordray’s resignation, a number of industry representatives urged Congress and the White House to enact legislation to convert the leadership structure of the bureau to that of a multi-member, bipartisan board or commission. Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association, said, “While we haven’t always agreed with Director Corday on issues, we have always shared his goal of wanting to help consumers and appreciated his willingness to engage with us. “Consumers are our customers, and nothing is more important to America’s banks than maintaining their trust and confidence,” he added. “We will continue to work with the CFPB under its new leadership to ensure consumers have access to the ...

It’s unlikely the mortgage lending and servicing industry will see any big changes at the CFPB right away – at least in terms of new regulations and rule-makings – once Richard Cordray formally exits the stage as director of the bureau, most experts said. “Until the president installs a new director, it should be business as usual,” former CFPB official Benjamin Olson, now a partner with Buckley Sandler in Washington, DC, told Inside the CFPB. As excited as some mortgage industry representatives were upon hearing the news, all of the bureau’s rulemakings related to mortgage lending and servicing have already been issued and finalized, so that’s all water under the bridge. A new director will not be able to willy-nilly revoke or ...

Major news outlets have reported that President Trump intends to choose current Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the CFPB upon Richard Cordray’s departure as chief of the consumer bureau. Attorneys with the Buckley Sandler law firm in Washington, DC, said in an online blog post that Mulvaney, a former Republican member of the House from South Carolina, would keep his current position and serve as both the director of OMB and acting director until the president nominates and the Senate confirms a permanent replacement for Cordray. Mulvaney, a long-time critic of the bureau, would be able to step into the acting director position since he has already passed muster with the Senate. As ...

The CFPB recently told a U.S. District Court it opposes Ocwen Financial’s motion to submit the Department of Justice’s brief filed in another case in lieu of the department’s inaction when it comes to weighing in on Ocwen’s dispute with the bureau. Ocwen recently asked the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach Division, for permission to file a supplemental memorandum (an earlier brief by the DOJ in PHH Corp. v. CFPB as to the unconstitutionality of the bureau) in defense of the company’s motion to dismiss the consumer regulator’s case against it. The common thread in both cases is that Ocwen and PHH similarly assert that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional. During the Obama administration, the ...

Back in October, the CFPB issued a proposed rule to clarify the timing for mortgage servicers to transition to providing modified or unmodified periodic statements and coupon books in connection with a consumer’s bankruptcy case. Since its 2016 mortgage servicing rule was adopted, the bureau said it has received significant input that certain aspects of the single-billing-cycle exemption and timing requirements may be more complex and operationally challenging than it realized, and that the relevant provisions may be subject to different interpretations. Therefore, the CFPB proposed several revisions to replace the single-billing-cycle exemption with a single-statement exemption. More specifically, the bureau proposed to revise the single-billing-cycle exemption to instead provide a single-statement exemption for the next periodic statement or coupon ...

More Industry Advice for a Post-Cordray CFPB. Competitive Enterprise Institute financial policy expert John Berlau said last week, “Richard Cordray’s impending resignation as director of the CFPB is long overdue.... Growth of CFPB Leveling Off. The total number of employees at the CFPB came to 1,668 for fiscal year 2017, up 20 positions from the year before, according to the bureau’s latest financial statements for the last two years.... GAO Signs Off on CFPB Financial Statements. The Government Accountability Office audited the CFPB’s financial statements for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, and found they are “presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.”...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors recently told the CFPB it is concerned that a rule expected from the bureau could erode the relationship lending model that community banks use with small businesses. “The proposed new data collection requirements will require lenders to compile and report a variety of data points regarding small business applications and loans,” the state regulators said in a recent comment letter to the bureau. “At a minimum, these new data collection requirements will impose additional and disproportionate compliance costs on smaller financial institutions with limited resources and unnecessarily raise the cost of originating small business loans by all lenders.” According to the CSBS, community banks exercise a substantial amount of discretion and expertise in the ...