Warren: CFPB has the power to stop crypto fraud

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) doesn’t have to wait for other agencies to act to tackle cryptocurrency payment abuse, Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Thursday (October 28), Bloomberg reported.

Warren said Americans who use popular digital coins are at greater risk of fraud and other related abuses, including being unable to withdraw their money from crypto exchanges, according to the report.

“With their intense focus on consumers, the CFPB has a role to play as a cop on the beat,” Warren said in an interview with Bloomberg. “The crypto infiltration of the market crosses the jurisdiction of different regulatory bodies. The answer to this is not that each agency should wait for the other to act, it’s that agencies should all take the tools at their disposal and move on.

Lawmakers from both major U.S. parties have said they are concerned about the possibility of fraud or crime in the rapidly growing popular industry, according to the report.

Meanwhile, regulators have signaled that they plan to institute more regulations. Ahead of a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said he plans to examine how tech giants like Facebook are using cryptocurrencies as part of a larger investigation into how businesses use consumer data, according to the report.

Last week, the CFPB announced plans to send information requests to big tech companies.

Read More: CFPB Should Ask Tech Giants About Financial Data Management

Chopra said Alphabet’s Facebook, Amazon and Google, as well as PayPal, Square and other companies, will receive 55-page questionnaires on how information is collected, used and stored.

This is part of a larger initiative that will help protect consumers and data, as well as ensure competition in consumer financial services.

Chopra was only recently appointed director of the monitoring agency. He’s a former Democratic Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner known to be tough on tech companies, and he was part of the founding of the CFPB a decade ago alongside Warren.

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