On May 7^th, Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Raj Date, spoke to the Mortgage Bankers Association National Secondary Market Conference. [Read more →]

                Nonbank trade groups are calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to narrow the definition it will use to determine which nonbanks will be subject to federal supervision. [Read more →]

                On May 3,2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said that it was actively working on a range of potential enforcement actions.  [Read more →]

On April 30, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) named Stuart Ishimaru as its first head of its Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, which is charged with monitoring the diversity policies of not only the agency itself, but also the firms that the Bureau regulates. [Read more →]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has recently announced it will enforce fair lending laws that it inherited under Dodd-Frank.  The CFPB is responsible for enforcing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which provides that a creditor may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age.  The CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity will focus on enforcement in this area. 

The CFPB emphasized in a formal bulletin on its ECOA enforcement that “the legal doctrine of disparate impact remains applicable as the Bureau exercises its supervision and enforcement authority to enforce compliance with the ECOA and Regulation B.”  [Read more →]

On April 24, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced the launch of a public inquiry into how arbitration clauses and arbitration itself affect financial services companies and consumers. CFPB Director Richard Cordray stated that “arbitration clauses are found in many contracts for consumer financial products, [and] we want to learn how arbitration clauses affect consumers and how effective arbitration is in resolving consumers’ issues. This inquiry will help the Bureau assess whether rules are needed to protect consumers.”

To read the full Troutman Sanders CFPB Advisory, click here.

Ten banks have been put under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s examination scrutiny for their overdraft protection practices.  The Bureau is reviewing the banks’ practices to gauge if recent overdraft regulations went far enough or if tighter rules are needed.

On April 19, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said that states can issue temporary licenses to mortgage lenders who are properly credentialed in other states.  [Read more →]

Patrice Ficklin, the CFPB’s Assistant Director for Fair Lending, outlined her unit’s rulemaking and enforcement agenda in an April 19, 2012 American Banker article. [Read more →]

On April 6, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its Annual Report on Consumer Complaints (the Report). The CFPB began accepting consumer complaints about credit cards on July 21, 2011, mortgage complaints on December 1, 2011, and complaints about bank products and services, private student loans, and other consumer loans on March 1, 2012. The CFPB anticipates accepting complaints about non-depository institutions by the end of 2012.

To read the full Troutman Sanders CFPB Advisory, click here.