Warren: CFPB should take a closer look at overdraft fees, crypto

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WASHINGTON Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is widely seen as the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she took the occasion of the agency’s 10th anniversary to call for tighter oversight of cryptocurrency and bank overdraft practices.

There are still so many areas where the office can make a difference, the Democratic senator said at a virtual event hosted by several groups, including Americans for Financial Reform, US Public Interest Research Group and the Center for Responsible Lending, acknowledging the anniversary of the CFPB.

Even in the face of … opposition from politicians and industry, the agency has survived [the Trump administration] and stayed strong, in part because it’s built well, ”Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said of CFPB.

Bloomberg

I think one of them is the overdraft fee, Warren said. This is an area where there is a lot of predatory behavior on the part of the giant banks that are making billions of dollars in profit and squeezing every penny from troubled customers.

The rules governing overdraft fees could help families a lot, Warren said, adding that she was confident the new CFPB leadership would use all the tools in its toolbox to protect consumers and hold bad actors accountable. Dave Uejio is currently acting director of the agency. President Joe Biden has appointed Rohit Chopra, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, as the permanent director of the CFPB, but it has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

The CFPB should also take a closer look at the cryptocurrency, Warren said.

We see a largely unregulated market growing day by day, and financial scams are on the rise with it, she said. Crypto is an area that I think all of our financial regulators are going to have to work together to address, and that means the CFPB needs a seat at the table in these discussions on these issues.

Warren is credited with coming up with the idea for the CFPB in 2007 while she was a professor at Harvard Law School, and then worked with the Obama administration to get the agency up and running. The CFPB officially opened on July 21, 2011. Warren ran for the Senate in 2012.

During the Trump administration, Warren regularly criticized then-acting director Mick Mulvaney and former CFPB director Kathy Kraninger for limiting the scope of agencies, and reiterated on Monday that their leadership was not a good time for the agency.

Mick Mulvaney and Kathy Kraninger have gone out of their way to try and gut the CFPB, Warren said. There is no doubt that during the years they were in charge, the agency did not live up to its potential. “

Yet, she added, even in the face of all this opposition from politicians and industry, the agency has survived and remained strong, in part because it is well built and, in part, because Thousands of dedicated career employees have stepped forward to work every day, even under leadership they didn’t believe in. ”

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