For anyone curious about how much it costs to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a General Accountability Office audit of the agency includes its financial statements from the last two fiscal years.
The audit, which was released on Friday, signed off on the CFPB’s financials and internal controls, deeming them to be in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and asserting that the agency maintained effective controls over its financial reporting.
Some interesting notes from the CFPB’s report:
- The duration of the average investigation undertaken by the CFPB has increased to 32 months from 23 months two years ago. The CFPB has established a target of 24 months for an investigation before reaching a decision to file or settle.
- The amount collected by the CFPB’s Civil Money Penalty fund declined to $131 million during the 2019 fiscal year, down from $523 million a year earlier.
- For those curious about the timing of a final debt collection rule — the CFPB has a established a nine-month timeline for finalizing proposed rulemakings from the date when a proposed rule’s comment period closes, and hit that mark on 100% of its proposed rules in the 2019 fiscal year. That would put the timing on a final debt collection rule somewhere around June 2020.
