On Thursday, October 28, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will host a full Committee Hearing at 9:00 a.m. CDT titled, "New Era for Consumer Protection: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Semi-Annual Report to Congress."
Taking the stand to provide an update on the CFPB will be recently appointed new Director of the CFPB, the Honorable Rohit Chopra. He will be discussing the 114-page “Semi-Annual Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” originally released October 8.
With less than a month on the job, Chopra was confirmed by the Senate by a 50-48 vote, taking over the role from former Acting Director Dave Uejio, who was named to the position by President Biden on January 20, 2021.
Chopra oversees a $600 million budget and 1,600-member workforce dedicated to protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive practices in the financial marketplace. The CFPB supervises more than 150 depository institutions with assets totaling more than $10 billion. The CFPB also supervises mortgage originators and servicers, and payday lenders, as well as companies from the consumer reporting, consumer debt collection, student loan servicing, international money transfer, and automobile financing financial marketplaces.
Chopra served as CFPB Assistant Director and was its first Student Loan Ombudsman before he was nominated to serve as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2018. During his tenure at the FTC, he pushed for aggressive remedies against lawbreaking companies, especially repeat offenders, and has worked to reverse the FTC’s reliance on no-money, no-fault settlements.
After the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Chopra joined the Department of the Treasury to launch the CFPB. He then served as Assistant Director of the CFPB, overseeing the agency’s student loan agenda.
As the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, Chopra led efforts to spur competition in the student loan financing market, develop new tools for students and student loan borrowers to make smarter decisions, and secure hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds for borrowers victimized by unlawful conduct by loan servicers, debt collectors, and for-profit college chains.
Chopra later served as Special Advisor to the Secretary of Education to advance the Department’s efforts to improve student loan servicing, reduce unnecessary defaults, and bolster enforcement. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focused on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families, and a Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.
Chopra is the recipient of multiple awards for his public service and contributions to the field of consumer finance. Prior to entering government, Chopra worked at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he worked in the financial services, health care, and consumer technology sectors.
He holds a BA from Harvard University, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.
Click here for more information on this event.
Here's what else is happening in The Week Ahead:
- MBA’s Forbearance and Call Volume Survey (Monday)
- First American Real House Price Index (Monday)
- SitusAMC Webinar: Compliance Corner With Laura LaRaia and Jed Mayk (Tuesday)
- MBA Weekly Applications Survey (Wednesday)
- Realtor.com Weekly Housing Market Recap (Wednesday)
- U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Hybrid Hearing: “Bringing Consumer Protection Back: A Semi-Annual Review of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" (Wednesday)
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (Thursday)
- NAR Pending Home Sales Index (Thursday)
- U.S. Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (Thursday)
- Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University: How Have Renters Responded to Financial Stress in the Pandemic? (Friday)
- Black Knight weekly forbearance data (Friday)