While the CFPB is responsible for ensuring fairness to American consumers in their financial affairs, the agency is now facing workplace discrimination and retaliation charges from former and current agency employees. A class action complaint was filed against the CFPB and Acting Director Mick Mulvaney in September, alleging discrimination and retaliation against minority and female workers. The complaint was filed to the U.S. District Court for the ...

CFPB to Open Office in Atlanta, Likely to Relocate Over 100 Employees. The CFPB recently announced plans to open a new office in Atlanta as its southeast regional headquarters. The relocation is expected to take place in late 2019. The southeast regional team is currently housed in the bureau’s DC headquarters. The CFPB said the relocation will align the bureau with its regulatory partners that already have a regional presence in Atlanta [Includes two briefs] ...

The CFPB is creating a “disclosure sandbox” as its most recent step to encourage fintech innovation. Many are expecting the bureau to tackle the flawed no-action letter policy next. The CFPB recently published a revised policy for its trial disclosure program in the Federal Register. The new policy would streamline the application process, establish procedures for extending successful trial disclosure programs, and allow the CFPB to coordinate with sandbox ...

Three months after the CFPB fired all the members on its three advisory boards, the agency has reconstituted the panels with fewer members serving shorter terms. The CFPB recently announced nine members for the Consumer Advisory Board, down from 25 during former Director Richard Cordray’s tenure in the agency. Only one of nine comes from the consumer advocacy world – Liz Coyle, executive director at Georgia Watch, which describes itself ...

A community bank in Texas and two DC-based nonprofit groups recently filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the CFPB’s sole-director structure. The State National Bank of Big Spring, 60 Plus Association, and Competitive Enterprise Institution originally filed a lawsuit in 2012 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging the CFPB’s structure violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers. The district ...

A court panel recently declined to enforce a civil investigative demand issued by the CFPB because the language is too broad and generic. Attorneys said it was the second strike against the bureau for aggressive interpretation of its authority after the D.C. circuit ruled a CID invalid last year. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a CID issued to Source for Public Data – a company that provides public records through an internet-based ...

CFPB Updates Model Disclosures Under Fair Credit Reporting Act . The CFPB last week issued an interim final rule updating two model disclosures to reflect changes made to the FCRA by the recent Dodd-Frank reform act.The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which became law in May, requires nationwide consumer reporting agencies to provide “national security freezes” free of charge to consumers. The [Includes three briefs] ...

The CFPB late last week issued a rule to clarify partial HMDA exemptions for small financial institutions ushered in under the Dodd-Frank reform act. The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed into law in May, exempts depositories – including credit unions – that originated fewer than 500 closed-end mortgages or 500 open-end lines of credit in each of the two preceding calendar years from certain expanded reporting ...

It’s just a matter of time, but it appears that Republican Kathy Kraninger, a career government worker, will become the next permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In late August, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs approved Kraninger’s nomination by a party-line vote of 13 to 12. The approval, though close, was not a surprise. “There is nothing significantly controversial about her candidacy that will change ...

The CFPB announced that it will hold a day-long symposium, “Building a Bridge to Credit Visibility,” to explore challenges many consumers face in getting credit. This event will take place on Sept. 17 in the CFPB’s Washington, DC, headquarters, and will be streamed live. The CFPB said the symposium “will convene a diverse set of stakeholders to explore challenges in overcoming barriers to expand fair, equitable, and non-discriminatory access to credit [Includes three briefs] ...