A task force convened by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was charged with “modernizing” consumer protection laws is due to release its report tomorrow, with as many as 100 different recommendations.
The CFPB is hosting an online meeting tomorrow at 1pm ET to share the “findings, analyses, and recommendations” of the task force as well as a pre-arranged Q&A session with Eric Kaplan, who chairs the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board.
The members of the task force are:
- Dr. J. Howard Beales, III, former Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission
- Dr. Thomas Durkin, Senior Economist (Retired) at the Federal Reserve Board
- L. Jean Noonan, former Associate Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Credit Practice at the Federal Trade Commission
- William MacLeod, former Bureau Director at the Federal Trade Commission.
- Todd J. Zywicki, Professor of Law at George Mason University (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School, Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and former Executive Director of the GMU Law and Economics Center
Last March, the task force issued a Request for Information, publishing more than 20 questions about how well the financial markets were functioning for consumers. Among the laws over which the CFPB has enforcement authority are: the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, the Consumer Leasing Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Credit Repair Organizations Act, and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act.
Consumer advocates and state regulators did not approve of the task force or its agenda. A number of advocacy groups sued the CFPB, alleging it stacked the task force with individuals who “uniformly represent industry views.” The Conference of State Banking Supervisors sent a letter to the CFPB, wondering why they were being left out of the process, and questioning the timing of the task force’s RFI, which was issued at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One report, which summarized comments from Noonan that were made at a public event last month, said that the report will cover such topics as “how to give disclosures that are useful to consumers as opposed to disclosures that no one reads. The recommendations will be not only for the Bureau but also for Congress, other federal agencies, and the states.”
