Former CFPB #2 Opens Consulting Firm Focused on Consumer Finance

Raj Date, former Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has started a consulting firm that will serve bank clients. The Washington, DC-based group will be focused on consumer finance issues.

“There is a ton of opportunity to build and refine consumer finance into a better industry,” Date told American Banker. “We’re really on the cusp of being able to have financial companies that are more transparent to customers in a way that’s more efficient to operate; and to take advantage of data and analytical tools that five years ago didn’t even exist.”

The firm, called Fenway Summer (a homage to his Boston roots), will help both established and startup consumer finance firms in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and private equity support. Date told Bloomberg that in his new role he will not lobby for clients or advise them on government relations.

“I am not especially interested in technical compliance work and government focus,” he said. “I think it’s important work, but it’s not where my particular background or expertise lies.”

Date served as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s first Deputy Director. He spent more than two years helping to build the agency, playing a number of key leadership roles within the Bureau, including as the Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and as the Associate Director for Research, Markets, and Regulations.

He left the Bureau at the end of January, at the time citing the desire to spend more time with family. Prior to that, Date held positions at Capital One and Deutche Bank, with a brief stint at a financial think tank before taking the CFPB job.