Kathy Kraninger, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be back on Capitol Hill this morning, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee.
The hearing, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Semi-Annual Report to Congress, also includes an Executive Session where the committee will consider the nominations of three individuals to various government agencies.
Kraninger’s appearance today will likely mirror her time before the House Financial Services Committee last week, in which she appeared poised but did not provide much in the way of substantive information.
Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] will likely try to paint Kraninger with the same brush in which they used on Mick Mulvaney when he was acting director of the CFPB. Kraninger has only been in office for three months and aside from released a revised proposed rule on the payday lending industry, has had a fairly quiet start to her term as director of the CFPB. That being said, the credit and collection industry is anxiously awaiting a proposed rule governing the debt collection market, which the CFPB has said it will release this month.
Similar to Kraninger’s testimony last week before the House, it is unlikely that any specific debt collection issues will be addressed when she sits down before the Senate Banking Committee today, but that doesn’t mean the hearing won’t still provide some pretty good theater.
