The ""Treasury"":http://www.treasury.gov has filled two key leadership positions for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) implementation team. Currently housed at Treasury, the CFPB will have statutory oversight of mortgage lending and the power to set new rules for home loans and other consumer-facing credit products.
[IMAGE]Steve Antonakes will lead depository supervision, building the consumer supervision program for the nation's largest depository institutions. Peggy Twohig will lead the non-depository supervision team, spearheading efforts to conduct research and policy analysis.
The announcement was made by Elizabeth Warren, assistant to the president and special advisor to the secretary of the Treasury on the CFPB. Warren made a name for herself as the outspoken head of the Congressional Oversight Panel. The former Harvard Law School professor is not shy about expressing her disapproval of Wall Street, big banks, and the administration's response to the mortgage crisis.
[COLUMN_BREAK]""There are plenty of good lenders out there that want to build their businesses around providing good service to their customers, but the market doesn't work for them when some of their competitors aren't playing by the same rules,"" Warren said. ""Peggy and Steve will play critical roles in building a CFPB that will level the playing field between bank and non-bank lenders.""
Warren added, ""For the first time, consumer credit is going to be regulated by product instead of by the kind of company selling it, and these two will be instrumental in developing this new approach.""
Twohig currently serves as Treasury's director of the Office of Consumer Protection and policy lead for the CFPB implementation team.
Prior to joining Treasury, Twohig worked at the Federal Trade Commission on enforcement and policy issues related to consumer financial services, including directing the activities of the Division of Financial Practices. She also practiced law with Arnold & Porter in Washington D.C., handling civil litigation matters.
Antonakes was commissioner of banks for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the past seven years, overseeing nearly 240 state-chartered banks and credit unions and more than 4,500 non-bank financial entities.
He also served as a voting member of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) and as the vice chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS). He began his career as a Community Reinvestment Act bank examiner in 1990 and worked his way through the management ranks to become Massachusetts' commissioner of banks-the second career bank examiner to serve in that position.