Richard Cordray testified yesterday before the Senate Banking Committee about the CFPB’s Semi-Annual Report covering activities for the first half of this year. We previously blogged about the Report.
Cordray’s written testimony states: “As of September 3, we have received 72,297 consumer complaints about credit cards, mortgages, and other financial products and services, and the pace of complaints has been increasing over the past year.”
According to a Bloomberg report on the hearing, which I did not attend, Cordray “said [the Capital One settlement regarding add-on credit card products] should serve as a warning to other credit card issuers supervised by the agency to avoid similar practices. We very much want and intend for them to do that.” I am very concerned about the CFPB’s apparent policy of trying to regulate an entire industry by entering into a consent order with one company instead of going through a notice and comment rulemaking proceeding.
According to the Bloomberg article, Cordray also “confirmed that the CFPB will write a regulation on prepaid debit cards… Cordray said the cards available range from ‘pretty responsible’ to ‘pretty terrible and definitely exploitative.’”