During a congressional oversight hearing, House Financial Services Committee members grilled CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger on the bureau’s interpretation of the abusiveness standard, plans to reform the qualified-mortgage rule and the controversial RESPA bulletin.

The consumer watchdog hiked its budget for 2020, taking its spending to levels last seen in 2017.

Two top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are pressing for the immediate suspension of a newly-formed task force on federal consumer law.

The bureau has released three surveys as part of its review of the integrated mortgage disclosure rule. According to comments received so far, the industry seeks clarity in the rule’s timing requirements.

Fitch Ratings raised concerns about the CFPB’s plan to move away from the debt-to-income ratio in defining a qualified mortgage. It believes the DTI ratio is a better predictor of borrower default risk.

CFPB-Education Department MOU; CFPB’s associate director for research, markets and regulation resigns; Puerto Rico reporting requirements; debt collection event.

The CFPB intends to do away with the debt-to-income metric as a mortgage underwriting factor and instead consider an alternative to assess a borrower’s ability to repay. The news drew mixed reactions.

In a new policy statement, the CFPB said it will rely on a cost-benefit analysis to deal with “abusiveness” claims in supervision and enforcement.

More than a dozen briefs have been filed before the Supreme Court defending the CFPB’s constitutionality. State attorneys general told the high court that killing the bureau would harm states’ consumer protection authority.

The TRID rule’s cure liability issues and compliance burdens were the main focus of industry feedback letters to the CFPB.