Cordray Answers Advocates’ Questions During National Call

Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB, spoke yesterday to advocates across the U.S. in a national field call hosted by Americans for Financial Reform. The call was designed to provide a point of direct engagement between communities and the federal government.  These calls were originally started by Elizabeth Warren when she was the Acting Director, and Cordray promised to continue the calls regularly to improve transparency and to give the bureau opportunities to respond to localized questions directly. Cordray emphasized his commitment to moving forward with the full authority of the agency and entertained questions on a wide range of issues in an effort to identify advocates’ key concerns. 

Highlights

Military: Several participants on the call wanted more information about the CFPB’s work to protect military families from predatory lending and other questionable financial situations, such as for-profit colleges seeking young veterans as students and auto lending. Cordray cited the work of Holly Petraeus in the Office of Servicemember Affairs and asserted that the matters she brings to light take top priority within the bureau.  He continued to explain that the CFPB has a strong interest in understanding the unique challenges of military families and will be transparent about forthcoming enforcement and regulation.

Non-Bank Supervision: Cordray explained that non-bank supervision is something that the CFPB is now fully authorized to work on, and that they are trying to manage the specifics on how to appropriately implement their authority.  Cordray reminded the group of the huge challenges in the non-bank financial services sector which historically has little to no federal regulation and at best, uneven state regulation.  As a result, the bureau has a lot of work to do to define the scope of its authority over the non-bank industry (through the rulemaking process that requires the CFPB to determine how to identify larger participants in the industry).  While they will work through the rulemaking in stages, they are moving forward with their enforcement authority to halt abusive practices such as lenders who fail to take the ability of an applicant to pay into account when they issue a loan.  Cordray cited his experience with lenders in Ohio migrating to the internet in response to more stringent regulation in recognition of the difficulty the CFPB will have in keeping pace with changes of the industry as they are setting up the bureau’s authority.

Consumer Complaints: The CFPB is serving currently as a sounding board for consumer complaints in two major industries: mortgages and credit cards. By soliciting input directly from affected consumers, they are elevating consumers’ words and experiences. The field calls are also part of this effort to be accessible and accountable to communities.

Asset Building: Cordray fielded a question about barriers to asset building in immigrant communities. He articulated a number of social and structural barriers that disproportionately affect immigrants and highlighted some forthcoming work on the issue of remittances.  It was encouraging to hear him speak articulately about the importance of asset building for all communities and to identify specific areas for potential intervention.

While we aren’t able to cover everything that happened in the call in this post, it was good to hear Cordray speak so frankly and knowledgeably about the variety of consumer finance issues. These calls will hopefully provide opportunities for advocates and practitioners concerned about consumer protection, financial services, and poverty a chance to learn more about the specific projects of the CFPB and to direct federal attention to important localized issues.