Since its inception three years ago, the CFPB has made several errors, raised concerns regarding the privacy of the information it collects, and is lacking transparency, according to a report issued yesterday. The report was the result of an in-depth review and analysis of the CFPB conducted by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative’s Consumer Protection Task Force.
Echoing concerns from business groups, the report stated that date collection requests from the CFPB “have been unwieldy, duplicative, and lacked a clearly stated purpose” and “must recognize that such requests can impose real costs on covered entities.” Officials with the American Bankers Association have previously said that complying with CFPB requests has become a “very laborious exercise” while the he U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the agency’s requests “extremely onerous” and “often unfocused, overly inclusive, and not coordinated with other regulators.”
The report also noted that the CFPB’s approach to public meetings is “inconsistent with the CFPB’s stated goal of full transparency.” In a review of the Federal Register, the report’s authors found that the CFPB had not published notice of any of its meeting in the official journal of the federal government. And in at least two cases, the CFPB failed to provide any advance notice of hearings that were supposed to be public, effectively shutting out public participation in its policymaking process.
The report concluded that problems for the CFPB have arisen when it fails to seek out “a broad range of input from stakeholders through a deliberative process.”
Founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell, the Bipartisan Policy Center describes itself as “a non-profit organization that drives principled solutions through rigorous analysis, reasoned negotiation and respectful dialogue. With projects in multiple issue areas, BPC combines politically-balanced policymaking with strong, proactive advocacy and outreach.”