FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Nov. 26, 2024

CONTACT:
Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org

AFR Statement on Vital Role of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Signs are mounting that the second Trump administration will try, like the first iteration, to undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mission and capacity to safeguard the rights and wallets of families throughout the United States. 

The CFPB, created after the devastating financial crisis in 2008, has made major contributions to families’ economic security by standing up for everyday people against Wall Street, predatory lenders, and other financial services companies trying to rip them off. Weakening the CFPB, slowing its work, or steering it to favor industry over the public interest would give bad actors a green light to do their worst, and further deepen this country’s racial wealth gap. 

The CFPB has obtained $20.7 billion in relief for over 200 million consumers in the form of restitution or cancelled debts through its supervision and enforcement powers, and kept many billions more in peoples pockets through new rules, guidance and other effective oversight policies. It is no surprise that polling has consistently found that voters – Republicans, Democrats, and independents – overwhelmingly support the mission of the CFPB and efforts to crack down on junk fees, fight lending discrimination, reduce the burden of medical debt, and promote competition in banking.

Over the last week, names have surfaced in the media that suggest President-elect Trump is considering industry representatives or anti-consumer veterans of his first administration (or both) to head the CFPB, a sign that the financial services lobby is looking for a head of the agency who will abandon its mission. 

That’s what they tried last time. After an interim period under an acting head who substantially curbed enforcement, Trump appointed Kathleen Kraninger — now a bank lobbyist — to lead the CFPB. Kraninger proceeded to let the financial services industry, in her words, “drive the agenda,” including, for example, eviscerating the agency’s rule against payday lending abuses.

Taking this path would please financial companies that want to keep charging junk fees and avoid accountability for unfair and abusive practices. It would do serious harm to people across the country who pay the price.  

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