During a heated hearing last week on Capitol Hill, the nominee to become the next CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger, identified some of her broad priorities for the consumer agency if she gets the job. Kraninger appeared to embrace the industry-friendly approach for the bureau that has been set by her boss at the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, who is also the acting director at the CFPB. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, said Kraninger showed a philosophy ...
Kathy Kraninger, President Trump’s pick to run the CFPB, faced tough questioning from Democrats in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs during a confirmation hearing last week. Democrats said Kraninger is not qualified for the top position in the powerful consumer agency. They hammered on her involvement with the Trump administration’s immigration policy that separates children from their parents and the response to ...
The CFPB will reduce the size of its three advisory groups to just six members each and cut annual operating costs by more than half, according to new advisory board charters obtained by Inside the CFPB from sources on Capitol Hill. The charters were signed by Acting Director Mick Mulvaney on June 5, a day before the CFPB announced it would fire all the serving members of the three panels, reconstituting them as “smaller” groups. Before Mulvaney took his ...
The CFPB last week named Paul Watkins, a lawyer in the Arizona attorney general’s office who helped establish a “regulatory sandbox” for the state, to lead the agency’s new Office of Innovation. Watkins was chief counsel for the Arizona AG’s 150-person Civil Litigation Division, which enforces state law related to consumer fraud, antitrust and other issues. He managed the nation’s first facility aimed at reducing compliance costs and burdens for new fintech ...
The CFPB recently fined Kansas-based National Credit Adjusters and its former chief executive $800,000 for illegal debt collection practices. The bureau originally ordered a $6 million civil money penalty but suspended most of it based on the financial condition of NCA and its former CEO. The CFPB said in a consent order that NCA and its former CEO, Bradley Hochstein, purchased consumer debt and used a network of debt collection companies that frequently ...
The controversial structure of the CFPB and its enforcement tactics will likely draw skeptical attention from the U.S. Supreme Court if President Trump’s pick, Brett Kavanaugh, is confirmed by the Senate, industry attorneys said. President Trump recently nominated Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate justice who has announced his retirement. Kavanaugh is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit with a pro-business ...
Industry groups recently wrote to ask the CFPB to educate consumers on specific topics such as arbitration and mortgage shopping. The letters were responses to the bureau’s request for information on its financial education programs. The bureau frequently creates and publishes educational content which covers a wide range of financial topics such as borrowing and saving. The bureau also cooperates with community organizations to disseminate ...
Industry trade groups called on the CFPB to encourage consumers to contact financial services firms directly about their complaints, rather than going through the bureau. In response to the CFPB’s request for information on the process of handling consumer complaints and consumer inquiries, a number of industry groups said the bureau should direct consumers to first seek redress directly from financial institutions before filing complaints to the CFPB ...
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