Elizabeth Warren Starts Beating the Drum

As we noted last week, the CFPB has rolled out it’s new website, as expected, that milestone is just a starting point for what’s to come for the Bureau. In addition to the new website, the CFPB has started beating the drum and raising awareness in the public eye.

This week, following the website launch, Elizabeth Warren held a conference call (sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America) where she spoke directly to a large group of pro-consumer groups, including Americans for Financial Reform. The substance of the call was largely to be expected, a big thank you to those who worked to make the CFPB real, a request for comment, especially using the CFPB website and it’s modern tools for soliciting comment.

After that it was straight on to question time, a mostly predictable series of questions on topics from the mortgage servicing industry, how they deal with a potential flood tide of consumer complaints, where students loans fit in the pecking order, how the CFPB plans to address payday lending and work with state partners. While there wasn’t much in the way of news, most of that falls into the “no news is good news” category, as there seems to be little if any deviation from past statements about priorities and principles. The CFPB is definitely going to have a hard time meeting some of it’s deadlines, but the work proceeds apace, and the baby organization has now passed NAF in size, nearly 150 employees are on hand.

While they worked the groups yesterday, the CFPB also managed to finagle some mass communicatin’; superstar face of the organization Holly Petraeus got a wet kiss from the CBS Evening News last night. As we said from day one, that looks like a great hire, take a look: