Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection) made some pointed comments about how bankers should be pressing lawmakers to pursue their agenda, how he determined whether he would meet with a lobbyist or not when he was in Congress, and why it looks like the agency’s consumer complaint database will not be public for much longer.
“I don’t see anything in here that says I have to run a Yelp for financial services sponsored by the federal government,” he said, according to published reports, referring to the consumer complaint database, which has been open to the public since its creation six years ago. Millions of complaints have been filed by consumers against financial services companies, including debt collectors.
The agency will maintain the database, but Mulvaney said he was under no obligation to make it available to the public.
Mulvaney also said that he would only meet with lobbyists who contributed to his campaign when he was a member of Congress.
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” said Mulvaney, according to a report in The New York Times, to an audience of 1,300 bankers and lending industry officials at an American Bankers Association conference in Washington. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”
