CFPB to Review Obsolete Regulations

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau later this month will start reviewing federal regulations affecting consumers and financial firms that may be “obsolete, unnecessary, redundant, or counterproductive,” Raj Date, who runs the CFPB's daily operations, told the House Financial Services’ Financial Institutions Subcommittee yesterday.

The bureau “will initiate a targeted review of these rules in search of ways to update and streamline the regulations,” he said. Date, who was testifying on the CFPB's first 100 days, also assured panel members that all agency decisions will be based on sound research, not ideology.

“We will not reason from ideology. We will not press a political agenda. Instead, we are going to be fact-based, pragmatic, and deliberative … ,” Date said. “You can count on us to make sure consumer financial markets actually work -- for families, for the honest firms that serve them, and for the economy as a whole.”

In an attempt to form a more consumer friendly, stronger, financial market Date stressed the importance of transparency as well as honest communication between regulators and financial institutions as “fundamentally good for franchises in the business, for issuers, for banks, and absolutely for consumers as well.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) reiterated his concern that the CFPB is too autonomous and powerful. “My fear is that there are simply no checks and balances. It could easily become a loose cannon,” he said.

Read Date’s testimony.