Big changes for financial regulation are on the horizon.
In a press release, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it will be reviewing its policies, rules and educational materials.
In the release, acting Director Mick Mulvaney says: “Much can be done to facilitate greater consumer choice and efficient markets, while vigorously enforcing consumer financial law in a way that guarantees due process.”
In other words, the CFPB is thinking about rolling back some of its regulation put in place under former leadership, put in place by the Obama administration.
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The CFPB was created in 2010 by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and started formally practicing in 2011. Since then, the CFPB has changed the way real estate agents, lenders, appraisers and consumers do business in the real estate market.
Changes ahead
Some of the most significant transformations to the financial industry the CFPB spearheaded include:
- making mortgage and other financial forms more accessible by abridging them and translating them into plain English;
- receiving and addressing consumer complaints;
- filing dozens of lawsuits against financial companies for harming consumers;
- making and enforcing new consumer financial laws; and
- implementing changes under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA).
But, in keeping with the administration’s stated goals, the CFPB’s newly appointed leadership seeks to turn back the clock.
President Trump recently boasted he has “done more on knocking out regulations than any other president in our history… and we haven’t even started.” As evidence, in July 2017, the Trump administration put a stop to 860 pending regulations, including consumer protections and environmental rules, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Following the administration’s deregulatory agenda, the acting director is gathering information to take the teeth out of the CFPB.
Looking to the future, this anti-regulatory agenda will see a return to the lending environment of the Millennium Boom — think “no doc” loans and zero down payments. It’s very exciting in the moment, when homeownership soars and home prices become untethered from what can be sustained by reasonably qualified buyers. But when the inevitable crash comes, the resulting price plunge and spike in foreclosures will be steep and terrible for housing.
Before any changes are official, the CFPB is requesting public comment on its activities. Comments can be submitted via the Federal Register, with details to be published in the coming weeks. Check back here for links to submit your comments as they become available.
Submit your comments at the Federal Register, here.
CFPB should be closed up. The Dobb-Frank Act should be repeal. With over 30 plus years in the real estate business I have seen my share of ups and downs. Does anyone remember the RSTC under the Regan Administration. Anytime you relax regulations starting with Bill Clinton and continuing through George Bush, you are
going to have problems like we had. I did not agree with these “liar loans” that were being made and all the mortgage paper that was been “cut up” for wall street.
For years we had stable lending regulations and qualified professional underwriters who knew how to approve loans. Let’s face it, lending is a “risk” business however is you hire the best professionals and have reasonable regulations markets are stable and the country grows. Once lender’s are afraid to make loans or take any “risk” due to being sued or fined then lending gets tighter and the economy slows down to a crawl. Thank you Mr. Obama
You 7 on the FT Journal Editorial Board are clearly biased towards the left.
The CFPB was created outside the purview & funding of the Congress, getting its funding directly from the Treasury. Obama had people put in place with Leftist ideologies, using the board to basically extort payments (penalties) from companies, and directing them to their favored leftist groups. This is all on record, but you fail to even acknowledge even one item that would be detrimental to them.
You are part of the problem defending this board, and not part of the solution. This unconstitutional entity should rightly be abolished, and enforcement left to the states.
In my nearly 8 year experience with the CFPB I found it to be one of the most inept and apparent corrupt government organizations that should and could have helped millions relative to all the wrongful foreclosures that resulted in millions of property owners losing their homes and property due to one of the biggest fraudulent, racketeering scams in U. S. History.
We the public against scammed and misinformed about how Countrywide Home Loans and all the banks getting involved in securitization of loans and passing worthless paper based upon phony, fabricated, forged, and “robosigned” documents created by huge “paper mills” across the country that included lawfirms like the Stern lawfirm in Florida where their license was finally revoked and rightly so. This kind of stuff is still going on with the phony/pretend lenders!!
Semper Fi. I think it is a great thing that Condray is gone. They should do the same with the useless CFPB or start all over with a true consumer oriented agency that will really and truly help victims of the huge financial mess. I encourage everyone to read “Chain of Title” by David Dayen. Truly eye opening and so sad!!!
Just because you call something “Consumer or Environmental” protection, doesn’t mean it’s either. Don’t give me the ‘name” of some bill or regulation, tell me exactly what it does. Most regulations these days, have nothing to do with the stated goals of the regulatory agency. It’s either a power play or a money grab….or both. The CFPB has done nothing, that I can see, in protecting mortgage borrowers. But, they have certainly made borrowing more expensive for borrowers. As with so much of the other crap that came out of Dodd-frank.
Frank? I agree that the CFPB needs to be done away with. However, Your grasp on the facts surrounding the meltdown, is a bit juvenile, at best. Your bitter rant sounds more like the headlines of the day than the actual reasons that whole thing happened. Do a little more research on Barney Frank.