Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. CFPB jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, mortgage-servicing operations, foreclosure relief services, debt collectors and other financial companies operating in the United States.

The CFPB's creation was authorized by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, whose passage in 2010 was a legislative response to the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the subsequent Great Recession. The CFPB's status as an independent agency has been confirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Video Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Role

According to former Director Richard Cordray, the Bureau's priorities are mortgages, credit cards and student loans. The CFPB was designed to consolidate its employees and responsibilities from a number of other federal regulatory bodies, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration and even the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The bureau is an independent unit located inside and funded by the United States Federal Reserve, with interim affiliation with the U.S. Treasury Department.

The CFPB writes and enforces rules for financial institutions, examines both bank and non-bank financial institutions, monitors and reports on markets, as well as collects and tracks consumer complaints.

The CFPB opened its website in early February 2011 to accept suggestions from consumers via YouTube, Twitter, and its own website interface. According to the United States Treasury Department, the bureau is tasked with the responsibility to "promote fairness and transparency for mortgages, credit cards, and other consumer financial products and services". According to its web site, the CFPB's "central mission...is to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans--whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products". In 2016 alone most of the hundreds of thousands of consumer complaints about their financial services--including banks and credit card issuers--were received and compiled by CFPB and are publicly available on a federal government database.

Maps Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

History

In July 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, during the 111th United States Congress in response to the Late-2000s recession and financial crisis. The agency was originally proposed in 2007 by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren. The proposed CFPB was actively supported by Americans for Financial Reform, a newly created umbrella organization of some 250 consumer, labor, civil rights and other activist organizations.

On September 17, 2010, President Obama announced the appointment of Sen. Warren as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to set up the new agency. Due to the way the legislation creating the bureau was written, until the first Director was in place, the agency was not able to write new rules or supervise financial institutions other than banks.

On July 21, 2011 Senator Richard Shelby wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal affirming his continued opposition to a centralized structure, noting that both the Securities Exchange Commission and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had executive boards and that the CFPB should be no different. He noted lessons learned from experiences with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as support for his argument. Politico interpreted Shelby's statements as saying that Cordray's nomination was "dead on arrival". Republican threats of a filibuster to block the nomination in December 2011 led to Senate inaction.

The CFPB formally began operation on July 21, 2011, shortly after President Obama announced that Sen. Warren would be passed over as Director in favor of Richard Cordray, who prior to the nomination had been hired as chief of enforcement for the agency.

Elizabeth Warren, who proposed and established the CFPB, was removed from consideration as the bureau's first formal director after Obama administration officials became convinced Warren could not overcome strong Republican opposition. On July 17, President Obama nominated former Ohio Attorney General and Ohio State Treasurer Richard Cordray to be the first formal director of the CFPB.

However, Cordray's nomination was immediately in jeopardy due to 44 Senate Republicans vowing to derail any nominee in order to encourage a decentralized structure of the organization. Senate Republicans had also shown a pattern of refusing to consider regulatory agency nominees.

Since the CFPB database was established in 2011, more than 730,000 complaints have been published. CFPB supporters include the Consumers Union claim that it is a "vital tool that can help consumers make informed decisions". CFPB detractors argue that the CFPB database in a "gotcha game" and that there is already a database maintained by the Federal Trade Commission although that information is not available to the public.

On January 4, 2012, Barack Obama issued a recess appointment to install Cordray as director through the end of 2013. This was a highly controversial move as the Senate was still holding pro forma sessions, and the possibility existed that the appointment could be challenged in court.

The constitutionality of Cordray's recess appointment came into question after a January 2013 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that President Obama's appointment of three members to the NLRB (at the same time as Cordray) violated the Constitution.

On July 16, 2013, the Senate confirmed Cordray as director in a 66-34 vote.

The Financial CHOICE Act, proposed by the House Financial Services Committee's Jeb Hensarling, to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed the House on June 8, 2017. Also in June 2017, the Senate was crafting its own reform bill.

Testimony in US Congressional hearings of 2017 have elicited concerns that the wholesale publication of consumer complaints is both misleading and injurious to the consumer market. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said at one such congressional hearing, "Is the purpose of the database just to name and shame companies? Or should they have a disclaimer on there that says it's a fact-free zone, or this is fake news? That's really what I see happening here." Responded Bill Himpler, executive vice president of the American Financial Services Association, a trade group representing banks and other lenders: "Something needs to be done." "Once the damage is done to a company, it's hard to get your reputation back.

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Proposed amendments

On July 11, 2013, the CFPB Rural Designation Petition and Correction Act (H.R. 2672; 113th Congress) was introduced into the House of Representatives. The bill would amend the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to direct the CFPB to establish an application process that would allow a person to have their county designated as "rural" for purposes of federal consumer financial law. One practical effect of having a county designated rural is that people can qualify for some types of mortgages by getting them exempted from the CFPB's qualified mortgage rule.

On September 26, 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Safety and Soundness Improvement Act of 2013 (H.R. 3193; 113th Congress) was introduced into the United States House of Representatives. If adopted, the bill would have modified the CFPB by transforming it into a five-person commission and removing it from the Federal Reserve System. The CFPB would have been renamed the "Financial Product Safety Commission". The bill was also intended to make it easier to override the CFPB decisions. It passed in the House of Representatives on February 27, 2014 and was received by the Senate on March 4. It was never considered in the Democratic controlled Senate.

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2017 dispute over acting director

On November 24, 2017, Director Cordray appointed Leandra English to the position of deputy director, and announced that he would leave office at the close of business that day. Cordray indicated that would make English the acting director after his resignation, citing provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act providing that the deputy director of the CFPB becomes acting director in the "absence or unavailability" of the director. Later the same day, however, President Donald Trump appointed the incumbent director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, as acting director, citing the authority of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.

On November 25, the Office of Legal Counsel released an opinion, written by Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, asserting that the President has the authority under the FVRA to designate an acting CFPB Director. The OLC memo maintains that "both the Vacancies Reform Act and [§1011(b)(5) of Dodd-Frank] are available for filling on an acting basis a vacancy that results from the resignation of the CFPB's Director" but that "when the President designates an individual...outside the ordinary order of succession, the President's designation necessarily controls." This position is also supported by the General Counsel of the CFPB, Mary E. McLeod.

On November 26, English filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a temporary restraining order and declaratory judgment to prevent Mulvaney from becoming acting director, which was denied by a federal judge on November 28, 2017. Mulvaney was given access by unnamed individuals with the keys to the director's office on November 27 and ordered all CFPB employees to disregard any claims from English that she is the acting director. Both English and Mulvaney sent emails to the entire 1,600-person staff of the CFPB, each signing as "Acting Director" of the agency. On November 28, 2017, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied English's motion for a preliminary injunction and allowed Mulvaney to begin serving as CFPB Acting Director.

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Regulatory activities

From its creation until 2017, the CFPB "has curtailed abusive debt collection practices, reformed mortgage lending, publicized and investigated hundreds of thousands of complaints from aggrieved customers of financial institutions, and extracted nearly $12 billion for 29 million consumers in refunds and canceled debts."

Mortgages

Regulatory implementation regarding mortgages is covered on the bureau website. Topics provided for consumers include, 2013 mortgage rule implementation, resources to help people comply, quick reference charts, supervision and examination materials, and a link for feedback. It also provides additional information that covers rural or under-served counties, HUD-approved housing counselors, and Appendix Q.

Appendix Q relates to the debt-to-income ratio that must be possessed for "qualified mortgages" and provides details about how to determine the factors for that calculation. The standard is set at no more than 43 percent.

Retirement and insurance investments

The CFPB is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage retirement savings and regulate savings plans, particularly focusing on investment scams that target the retired and elderly. "That's one of the things we've been exploring and are interested in in terms of whether and what authority we have", bureau director Richard Cordray said in a January 2013 interview. Some conservatives have been critical of this potential role, with William Tucker of the American Media Institute asserting that the agency intends to "control" retirement savings and force people to buy federal debt. The AARP has encouraged the agency to take an active role, arguing that the bureau will help protect elderly Americans from affinity fraud that often targets senior citizens, ensuring that their investments are less likely to be stolen through securities fraud or malpractice.

The main regulator of retirement and benefit plans established by employers and private industry is the U.S. Department of Labor, which enforces the main laws (ERISA, COBRA, and HIPAA), retirement plans (including 401(k), SIMPLE, 403(b), and traditional defined-benefit pensions) as well as many aspects of employer group-health plans. The Affordable Care Act, establishing marketplaces selling health plans directly to consumers, adopted the ERISA-style regulatory model, requiring all plans to have standardized documents such as a "summary plan document" (SPD), but the marketplace was regulated by the individual insurance commissioners of every state, with some states having multiple regulators (California maintains both a Department of Insurance and a Department of Managed Care). IRAs, also directed to consumers, are regulated by type of custodian (the FDIC regulates bank custodians, the IRS regulates non-bank custodians). Annuities, life insurance, and disability insurance purchased directly by consumers, are regulated by individual state insurance commissioners. Marketing to consumers is generally regulated by the FCC and various state laws.

Because state commissioners are the main regulators, the CFPB is unlikely to assume a leadership role in retirement investment regulation without further legislation and possibly a US constitutional amendment transferring insurance lawmaking power to the federal government. In 2011, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners identified "the single most significant challenge for state insurance regulators is to be vigilant in the protection of consumers, especially in light of the changes taking place in the financial services marketplace", and the CFPB may help fill this void. Many have argued the state-based system of insurance regulation (including insurance-like products such as annuities) is highly economically inefficient, results in uneven and non-portable insurance plans, artificially shrinks risk pools (especially in smaller states) resulting in higher premiums, limits mobility of brokers who have to re-certify in new states, complicates the needs of multi-state business, and should be replaced with a national insurance regulator or national insurance charter option as has taken place with the regulation of securities and banking.

Public outreach

The CFPB has created a number of personal finance tools for consumers, including Ask CFPB, which compiles plain-language answers to personal finance questions, and Paying for College, which estimates the cost of attending specific universities based on the financial aid offers a student has received.

The CFPB has also attempted to help consumers understand virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.

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List of directors

Status

     

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Legal challenges

Two lawsuits were filed in the early years of the CFPB; they were both dismissed by federal courts, but one was appealed and is still ongoing. The first one, filed in June 21, 2012, by a Texas bank along with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, challenged the constitutionality of provisions of the CFPB. One year later, in August 2013, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit because the plaintiffs had failed to show that they had suffered harm. In July 2015, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that the bank, but not the states that later joined the lawsuit, had standing to challenge the law, and returned the case for further proceedings.

A lawsuit filed July 22, 2013, by Morgan Drexen Integrated Systems, a provider of outsourced administrative support services to attorneys, and Connecticut attorney Kimberly A. Pisinski, challenged the constitutionality of the CFPB. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleged that the "CFPB's structure insulates it from political accountability and internal checks and balances in violation of the United States Constitution. Unbridled from constitutionally-required accountability, CFPB has engaged in ultra vires and abusive practices, including attempts to regulate the practice of law (a function reserved for state bars), attempts to collect attorney-client protected material, and overreaching demands for, and mining of, personal financial information of American citizens, which has prompted a Government Accountability Office ("GAO") investigation, commenced on July 12, 2013." That October, this case was dismissed by a D.C. Federal Court. On August 22, 2013, one month after Morgan Drexen's lawsuit, the CFPB filed its own lawsuit against Morgan Drexen in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging that Morgan Drexen charged advance fees for debt relief services in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule and engaged in deceptive acts and practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). The CFPB won this lawsuit and Morgan Drexen was ordered to pay $132,882,488 in restitution and a $40 million civil penalty.

In October 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that it was unconstitutional for the CFPB Director to be removable by the President of the United States only for cause, such as "inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance." Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Senior Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph, wrote that the law was "a threat to individual liberty" and instead found that the President could remove the CFPB Director at will. The ruling essentially makes the CFPB part of the United States federal executive departments. Circuit Judge Karen L. Henderson agreed that the CFPB Director had been wrong in adopting a new interpretation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, finding the statute of limitations did not apply to the CFPB, and fining the petitioning mortgage company PHH Corporation $109 million, but she dissented from giving the President a new power to remove the Director, citing constitutional avoidance. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the decision and ordered en banc review. On January 31, 2018, the en banc D.C. Circuit found that the CFPB's structure was constitutional by a vote of 7-3. Judge Cornelia Pillard, writing for the majority, found that the Take Care Clause does not forbid independent agencies, while each of the circuit judges from the earlier panel wrote separate dissents.

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Controversy

A 2013 press release from the United States House Financial Services Committee criticized the CFPB for what was described as a "radical structure" that "is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget." Moreover, the committee alleged a lack of financial transparency and a lack of accountability to Congress or the President. Committee Vice Chairman Patrick McHenry, expressed particular concern about travel costs and a $55 million renovation of CFPB headquarters, stating "$55 million is more than the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings." In 2012, the majority of GSA's Federal Buildings Fund went to rental costs, totaling $5.2 billion. $50 million was budgeted for construction and acquisition of facilities.

In 2014, some employees and former employees of the CFPB testified before Congress about an alleged culture of racism and sexism at the agency. Former employees testified they were retaliated against for bringing problems to the attention of superiors.

The CFPB has been criticized for the methodology it uses to identify instances of racial discrimination among auto lenders. Because of legal constraints, the agency used a system to "guess" the race of auto loan applicants based on their last name and zip code. Based on that information, the agency charged several lenders were discriminating against minority applicants and levied large fines and settlements against those companies. Ally Financial paid $98 million in fines and settlement fees in 2013. As the agency's methodology means it can only guess who may be victims of discrimination entitled to settlement funds, as of late 2015 the CFPB had yet to compensate any individuals who were victims of Ally's allegedly discriminatory practices.

Cordray was accused of multiple violations of the Hatch Act as Director of the CFPB and investigated by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), who found no violations.

In a 2014 interview with the Credit Union Times, current CFPB head Mick Mulvaney said the CFPB was a "sick, sad joke" and that it was run by "essentially a one person dictator."

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See also

• List of financial regulatory authorities by country
• Regulatory responses to the subprime crisis
• Subprime mortgage crisis solutions debate
• Title 12 of the Code of Federal Regulations
• Volcker Rule
• Wall Street reform

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References

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Further reading

• Holding the CFPB Accountable: Review Of The First Semi-Annual Report: Hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, January 31, 2012
• The Semi-Annual Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Hearing before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, September 20, 2012
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Semi-annual Report to Congress: Hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, April 23, 2013

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External links

• Official website
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Federal Register

Source of the article : Wikipedia