CFPB in Action: A Roundup of Recent Activity

The big news over the last two weeks at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was the announcement of enforcement actions against four mortgage insurers and the expansion of its Consumer Response Complaint Database. A public conversation has also begun about the cost of compliance.

Complaint Database

On March 28, 2013 the CFPB announced the release of 90,000 complaint records, with a call to the public to produce interesting charts and analysis of the data.

Among early reaction, Consumer Reports notes that the “database needs some work,” They identify the notable absence of the complaints themselves, which leads to the problem that there is little to no context for making any conclusions one way or the other.

And BusinessWeek posted this - Banks Roused by the CFPB’s Database of Complaints

And on April 9, our own Patrick Lunsford posted this about the appearance of debt collection complaints, although the Database doesn’t yet officially include complaints about debt collectors.

Mortgage Activity

On April 4, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced four enforcement actions to end what the Bureau believes to be improper kickbacks paid by mortgage insurers to mortgage lenders in exchange for business.

Many commented on the announcement, including Ballard Spahr and Mortgage News Daily.

What’s The Cost of Compliance?

In our last update we highlighted that – the CFPB wants to hear about the cost of complying with consumer finance regulations (the Research, Markets, and Regulations team is starting with banks). They said in a March 20 blog post that they hope to become better and smarter regulators.

Collectors are not alone in their concern about cost of compliance. This on Housingwire.com describes CFPB rules as a top concern for mortgage compliance teams.

I also noted this on mortgage industry blog, The Basis Point: the first I’ve seen mention of the idea that CFPB compliance costs could possibly be passed on to consumers (for instance, as a “compliance” line item on the HUD 1 produced for the sale/purchase of a home).

…and Just for good measure – I thought you’d enjoy this opinion from Phil Hall, on MortgageOrb - My Choice for the Next CFPB Director: Grumpy Cat