This June marks Kathy Kraninger’s sixth month anniversary as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since assuming the director role, Kraninger has continued to implement free-market reforms, achieving true consumer protection through the supervision of financial institutions–a dramatic departure from the enforcement-by-rulemaking approach the agency was founded on.
Kraninger’s Bureau outlined three guiding principles aimed at how to best run the agency: Educate consumers about financial products and money management; promote compliance and enforce the law; and modernize, clarify, and reduce the burden of rules. During her tenure, Kraninger has made successful strides at accomplishing many of these ambitious goals.
Her most prominent action was the decision to rollback payday lending regulations. Had these regulations gone into full effect, thousands of Americans would have no longer been able to obtain quick and easy access to short-term credit. Considering nearly 60 percent of Americans cannot afford an unexpected $500 expense and one third are consistently stressed about finances, having short term credit options is vital.
While Kraninger has only completed a mere six months of her five-year term, she has already proven her grasp of the CFPB’s true role. Hopefully, the next five and a half years will mirror her first few months and prove that regulator roll-back and consumer protection should continue to remain the agency’s main focus.