In a notice published in the Federal Register on October 10, the CFPB is seeking comments on the request it has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for generic clearance of its collection of information from providers of consumer financial services and products on compliance costs and other effects of regulations.   

In June, the CFPB had published a notice soliciting comments on its information collection plans in anticipation of that submission.  In response to the June notice, the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association submitted a joint comment letter opposing the CFPB’s use of a generic clearance to obtain compliance cost information.  

The ABA and CBA had criticized the CFPB’s use of “sweeping generalities” to describe the methods of collection the CFPB plans to use.  The new notice does not provide new details about such methods beyond adding that “[i]n some cases, the Bureau may also conduct case studies to gather more in-depth and granular information from a targeted sample of institutions.” 

In the new notice, the CFPB has raised its estimates of the number of respondents from 1,500 to up to 2,750 institutions and the total annual burden hours from 1,950 to up to 9,008 hours. 

Comments on the new notice are due by November 9, 2012.