Full Steam Ahead At The CFPB

by Stuart Shapiro

Richard Cordray was recently appointed as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  His appointment, finally granted as a recess appointment because Senate Republicans refused to confirm anyone to the position, allowed the CFPB to begin taking actions required by statute.  And you can see why Senate Republicans wanted to stop the confirmation, because Cordray would do things like protecting people sending remittances home to their families abroad:

Remittance senders have not always been able to get full information about their transactions, including how much money will be received on the other end. If an error was made, there was uncertainty for consumers about how the error would be resolved, if at all. There have been limited federal consumer protections for remittance senders.

With direction from Congress through the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB has now changed that. We have adopted new rules that will go into effect in February 2013. These rules will make the costs of remittances clear and hold remittance transfer providers and their agents accountable for errors.

Wow, I’m sure glad Senate Republicans held that up for a year.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.