CFPB eyes inconsistencies in consumer finance law with new ‘task force’

Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has set in motion plans to create a task force of non-bureau members to identify conflicts and inconsistencies within existing consumer financial laws. 

The “Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law” will consist of a chair and six members, according to the bureau’s website. The task force will provide an “objective and independent” evaluation of the current regulatory framework in the U.S. to identify where there may be gaps in knowledge or where regulation should be simplified or modernized, the bureau noted. 

Kraninger expects the newly created task force to directly report its recommendations to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws after it finalizes its evaluations of the existing legal and regulatory environment facing lenders.  

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Additionally, the task force will produce new research and legal analysis of consumer financial laws to identify ways to improve consumer understanding of markets and products. The application deadline to join the task force is Oct. 25.

Establishing a task force to revamp consumer finance laws is not a new idea. In fact, the task force is modeled after a 1968 commission established by the Consumer Credit Protection Act. That commission conducted original research to provide Congress with recommendations relating to the regulation of consumer credit backed by original empirical data, information and analyses — all of which undergird the report’s final recommendations, the bureau noted. 

The data, findings and recommendations from the commission in 1968 were all made public, and the report led to legislative and regulatory developments in consumer finance.

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