Tag Archives: CFPB

Steven L. Antonakes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)'s second-in-command official, announced Thursday in a memo to employees that he is stepping down from his position with the CFPB.

"Consumer complaints are the CFPB’s compass and play a central role in everything we do. They help us identify and prioritize problems for potential action," CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. "These monthly reports will enable us to share that data with the public more regularly, so that everyone can benefit from the information."

"We are accountable to this Congress in numerous ways that are in our statute," Cordray said at the hearing. "The GAO (Government Accountability Office) does a regular audit of our expenses and expenditures each year, which is not common to federal agencies. We are subject to an independent audit also by our statute."

On Wednesday, July 15, the House Financial Services Committee will receive the testimony of Fed Chair Janet Yellen in a full Committee hearing titled "Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy." Chair Yellen will update the Committee on the progress of the economy toward meeting the four benchmarks for the economy as set by the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (Humphrey Hawkins) Act of 1978.

The Bureau had also received many requests from lawmakers, lenders, and other mortgage industry professionals who are concerned with their ability to become fully compliant with the requirements of the rule in time for the original August 1 effective date.

In the last couple of weeks, the CFPB has been under fire for alleged discrimination against its employees and subsequent retaliation against the whistleblowers. Two of the whistleblowers testified last week in a subcommittee hearing in the House Financial Services Committee.

Witnesses who testified at the hearing were Robert Cauldwell, President of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335 and CFPB Examiner, and Florine Williams, Senior Equal Employment Specialist of the CFPB's Office of Civil Rights. Cauldwell went as far as to say the word "allegations" should be removed from the title of the hearing, because "discrimination and retaliation against CFPB employees is a fact."

In April, the Five Star Institute (FSI) and Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS) released a report titled "Analysis and Study of CFPB Consumer Complaint Data Related to Mortgage Servicing Activities,” that addressed the concern that the complaints do not provide a full picture of the mortgage servicing industry.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced a proposed amendment to the Know Before You Owe mortgage rule, commonly known as the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule, which would move the effective date of the rule to Saturday, October 3, 2015. According to CFPB, the Bureau is issuing the proposed amendment to correct an "administrative error" that would have pushed the TRID effective date back at least two weeks from its original effective date of August 1, 2015.

It didn’t quite have the drama of the old prison movies with the governor calling at the very last minute to grant a stay of execution, but the CFPB’s proposal to push back the effective date of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule until October 1 was a welcome reprieve, nonetheless.