The CFPB has issued its Fall 2021 Semi-Annual Report to Congress covering the period April 1, 2021 through September 30, 2021.

Since Rohit Chopra was sworn in as CFPB Director in October 2021, the report only reflects CFPB activity under the leadership of former Acting Director Uejio.  Although the report does not contain any noteworthy information about which we have not previously blogged, the format of the report is noteworthy in that it is different in two important respects from previous semi-annual reports.

First, the report does not include an introductory message from the Director (or Acting Director).  Previous Directors (or Acting Directors) sometimes used the introductory message to share information about their priorities and plans for the Bureau.  Hopefully, Director Chopra will provide insights into his priorities and plans when he appears before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee to testify about the report.  The House Financial Services Committee has scheduled its hearing for April 27, 2022 but no date has yet been announced for the Senate Banking Committee’s hearing.

The second change in the report’s format involves how the information presented is organized.  Previous reports were organized by topics such as “Significant problems faced by consumers in shopping for or obtaining consumer financial products or services,” “List of significant rules and orders adopted by the Bureau, as well as other significant initiatives conducted by the Bureau during the preceding year, and the plan of the Bureau for rules, orders or other initiatives to be undertaken during the coming period,” “analysis of complaints…”, and “List, with a brief statement of the issues, of the public supervisory and enforcement actions to which the Bureau was a party during the preceding year.”  While the new report appears to cover these same topics, with the exception of sections on “Public enforcement actions and reimbursements–TILA, EFTA, and the CARD Act” and “Outreach related to TILA and EFTA,” the new report presents information on a division by division basis.  Accordingly, the primary section of the report is titled “Divisional Reporting” and consists of separate reports from: Consumer Education and External Affairs; Office of Equal Opportunity and Fairness; Operations; Research, Markets and Regulations; and Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending.