Consumer Agency

Senate banking committee Chairman Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has discussed jettisoning plans for a standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency, as part of an effort to secure bipartisan support for legislation to reform financial regulation, said people familiar with the matter. One possibility raised during recent talks between Dodd's staff and Republican counterparts would be to assign new consumer protection powers to another agency. Such a compromise might offer an opportunity for Dodd to preserve the goal of expanding...

Director, National Priorities, Consumer Action Consumer Action's director of national priorities and one of the organization's chief spokespersons, Linda Sherry joined the San Francisco-based national consumer education and advocacy group in 1994 from a background as a weekly newspaper reporter. Sherry, a nationally recognized consumer advocate, is an expert on credit and financial services pricing and practices and consumer rights. She responds regularly to requests for interviews and background information about consumer protection issues from the...

For more than three hours Wednesday, supporters and opponents of a new federal agency that would oversee mortgages, credit cards and other consumer financial products dug deeper into their trenches in Room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Hilary O. Shelton, an NAACP vice president, said the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency "would provide the government with the tools necessary to help consumers navigate and be treated fairly by what is often a confusing and potentially ruinous environment.

President Obama on Thursday re-nominated Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all but assuring a fight with Senate Republicans who oppose the agency's sweeping powers to regulate the financial services industry. Cordray, 53, took the helm of the consumer agency in late 2011 through a recess appointment . His term expires at the end of the year unless he wins approval. But Senate staffers say Obama's end run has poisoned the waters for Cordray.

The new federal consumer watchdog agency is considering drafting new rules governing transparency and safety in the rapidly growing market for prepaid cards . Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray said the cards have fewer regulatory protections than bank accounts and debit cards. The agency said it will focus rule-making on three key areas: disclosure of fees and terms, liability for unauthorized transactions and niche product features, such as overdrawing an account.

The political stalemate that has dogged one of the centerpieces of President Obama's financial reform efforts — a new consumer watchdog agency — showed no signs of breaking on Wednesday as the Senate neared a critical vote to confirm the agency's director. Forty-five Republicans have threatened to filibuster a confirmation vote scheduled Thursday for Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which launched in July to oversee products such as credit cards and mortgages.

The Obama administration is no longer insisting on the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency as a central element of the plan to remake regulation of the financial system. In hopes of quick congressional approval of a reform bill, White House officials are opening the door to compromise with lawmakers concerned about creating a new bureaucracy, according to congressional and some administration sources. President Obama 's economic team is now open to housing the consumer regulator inside another agency,...

Senate Republicans expressed support Tuesday for President Obama's nominee to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but remained opposed to his confirmation without significant changes to the agency. Their stance leaves the agency's leadership in limbo and prevents it from using its full array of powers. Forty-four GOP senators have called for the bureau to be run by a five-member commission, rather than a single director, and for it to go through Congress for funding, rather than...

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially opened for business Thursday during rancorous political debate over the structure of the agency and who should lead it. The House approved a bill Thursday that would strengthen the veto power of the Financial Stability Oversight Council over the bureau's decisions. It would also install a five-member commission rather than a single director to head the agency and delay transfer of powers to the new agency. The bill passed 241 to 173, largely supported by...

Buying a house is often a stressful event. Getting a mortgage loan is sometimes even worse, especially when you don't fully understand what the entire process will cost, or even how it works. In an effort to reduce consumer confusion as well as the reams of paper involved in a real estate settlement transaction, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed rules aimed at simplifying and improving the disclosure forms required for mortgage transactions. Using the name Know Before You...

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, faced renewed questions Thursday about the legitimacy of his agency. Cordray, in a semiannual report to Congress, touted the bureau's accomplishments in drafting rules to fix mortgage servicing and supervising the previously unregulated non-bank financial firms. He added that the bureau is working on rules to bring greater transparency to prepaid debit cards and is fine-tuning its consumer complaint database — as of Sept.

Buying a house is often a stressful event. Getting a mortgage loan is sometimes even worse, especially when you don't fully understand what the entire process will cost, or even how it works. In an effort to reduce consumer confusion as well as the reams of paper involved in a real estate settlement transaction, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed rules aimed at simplifying and improving the disclosure forms required for mortgage transactions. Using the name Know Before...

The federal consumer watchdog agency on Monday proposed banning several controversial mortgage fees and unveiled new disclosure forms intended to help borrowers better understand the terms of their home loans. The moves come as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau approaches its first anniversary. During a speech in Las Vegas on Monday, CFPB Director Richard Cordray highlighted abuses in the mortgage market and said restoring trust in the industry was one of the key drivers for creating...

The new federal consumer watchdog agency is considering drafting new rules governing transparency and safety in the rapidly growing market for prepaid cards . Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray said the cards have fewer regulatory protections than bank accounts and debit cards. The agency said it will focus rule-making on three key areas: disclosure of fees and terms, liability for unauthorized transactions and niche product features, such as overdrawing an account.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday sought to bring debt collectors and credit bureaus under its purview, marking the first time the often controversial industries would be subject to federal supervision. Under its proposed rule, the CFPB would oversee the nation's largest debt collectors, the primary credit reporting agencies such as Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, and other lesser-known consumer reporting agencies . It is the first attempt by the watchdog agency to...

President Obama has done what he should have done months ago. On Wednesday, he appointed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Without missing a beat, Republicans, who have been holding up Cordray's nomination to head this important consumer agency, criticized the president's move, reports The Washington Post's David Nakamura and Felicia Sonmez. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that Obama "has arrogantly circumvented the American...

The Obama administration won its first major victory Thursday in its effort to overhaul the nation's financial system as a key House committee passed a bill to regulate exotic financial instruments known as derivatives. Trading in derivatives -- contracts used to bet on the movement of stocks, bonds, commodities and other things -- magnified last year's financial crisis by forcing companies to record bigger losses as markets collapsed. But for years policymakers had rejected regulating the derivatives...

Federal consumer bureau head Elizabeth Warren made no apologies Wednesday for the new agency's involvement in ongoing settlement negotiations with some of the nation's largest mortgage servicers, whose widespread flawed foreclosure practices drew national attention last fall. "If there had been a cop on the beat with the authority to hold mortgage servicers accountable a half dozen years ago, if there had been a consumer agency in place, the problems in mortgage servicing...

An agitated President Obama accused congressional Republicans on Thursday of not standing up for ordinary Americans after the Senate derailed his nominee to head a new federal consumer protection agency. At a brief news conference, the president charged that his Republican adversaries were not acting "on the level" after they blocked, by filibuster, his appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . "This makes no...

The political stalemate that has dogged one of the centerpieces of President Obama's financial reform efforts — a new consumer watchdog agency — showed no signs of breaking on Wednesday as the Senate neared a critical vote to confirm the agency's director. Forty-five Republicans have threatened to filibuster a confirmation vote scheduled Thursday for Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which launched in July to oversee products such as credit cards...