It seems as though the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau only makes the headlines now when it announces the next in a long line of reviews of its operation.
The agency announced yesterday that it was opening a review of its adopted regulations and new rulemaking authorities. This is the eighth such request the CFPB has issued in the past two months. The other requests were on its civil investigative demand letter process, its administrative adjudication process, its enforcement process, its supervision program, how it conducts external engagements, how it manages its consumer complaint database, and its rulemaking process.
Based on a previously published list, the CFPB will issue four more requests, covering:
- Inherited Rules
- Guidance and Implementation Support
- Consumer Education
- Consumer Inquiries
The areas in which the CFPB is seeking feedback on this particular Request For Information are:
- Aspects of the Adopted Regulations that:
- Should be tailored to particular types of institutions or to institutions of a particular size;
- Create unintended consequences;
- Overlap or conflict with other laws or regulations in a way that makes it difficult
or particularly burdensome for institutions to comply;
- Are incompatible or misaligned with new technologies, including by limiting providers’ ability to deliver, electronically, mandatory disclosures or other information that may be relevant to consumers; or
- Could be modified to provide consumers greater protection from the incidence and effects of identity theft.
- Changes the Bureau could make to the Adopted Regulations, consistent with its statutory authority, to more effectively meet the statutory purposes and objectives set forth in the Federal consumer financial laws, as well as the Bureau’s specific goals for the particular Adopted Regulation.
- Changes the Bureau could make to the Adopted Regulations, consistent with its statutory authority, that would advance the following statutory purposes and objectives as set forth in section 1021 of the Dodd-Frank Act:
- The statutory purposes set forth in section 1021(a) are:
- All consumers have access to markets for consumer financial products and services; and
- Markets for consumer financial products and services are fair, transparent, and competitive.
- The statutory objectives set forth in section 1021(b) are:
- Consumers are provided with timely and understandable information to make responsible decisions about financial transactions;
- Consumers are protected from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices and from discrimination;
- Outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations are regularly identified and addressed in order to reduce unwarranted regulatory burdens;
- Federal consumer financial law is enforced consistently in order to promote fair competition; and
- Markets for consumer financial products and services operate transparently and efficiently to facilitate access and innovation.
- The statutory purposes set forth in section 1021(a) are:
- Pilots, field tests, demonstrations, or other activities that the Bureau could launch to better quantify benefits and costs of potential revisions to the Adopted Regulations, or to make compliance with the Adopted Regulations more efficient and effective.
- Areas where the Bureau has not exercised the full extent of its rulemaking authority in connection with a specific Adopted Regulation or with regard to rulemaking authorities created by the Dodd-Frank Act under the Federal consumer financial laws, and where rulemaking would be beneficial and align with the purposes and objectives of the applicable Federal consumer financial laws.
