Released: March 07, 2019

CFPB must live up to its name

Protecting consumers should not be a sideline but a full-time job for the regulator tasked with consumer protection

Contact: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 301-718-2511 (DC based)

Washington, DC—Today, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is holding a hearing titled “Putting Consumers First? A Semi-Annual Review of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” (CFPB). The Bureau’s director, Kathy Kraninger, will testify and we call on her to make crystal clear that the financial regulatory agency she heads will stand up for the consumers referenced in its genesis and in its name.

Specifically, Consumer Action believes the CFPB must:

• Maintain its public complaint database to empower consumers and hold financial companies accountable;
• Restore its Student Lending office and Student Loan Ombudsman;
• Empower its Office of Fair Lending with enforcement authority to combat discrimination in financial services;
• Protect vulnerable consumers from predatory lenders with reasonable, effective rules; and
• Provide consumers with financial relief when the regulator determines companies have harmed them.

“Consumers have come to rely on the Consumer Bureau to file their financial complaints, decipher complex legal commitments like mortgages and hold financial companies responsible for fair and reasonable market practices,” said Ruth Susswein, Consumer Action’s deputy director of national priorities. “We cannot afford to let the current leadership at the sole agency tasked with protecting consumers turn its back on us.”

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Through multilingual consumer education materials, community outreach and issue-focused advocacy, Consumer Action empowers underrepresented consumers nationwide to assert their rights in the marketplace and financially prosper.