FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 26, 2025

CONTACT: Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org

Republican Attacks on CFPB Hurt Consumers and Help Wall Street

The House Financial Services Committee Financial Institutions Subcommittee convened a hearing today that will do little but air the grievances of the banking lobby over the highly effective work done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

“With Wall Street, Big Tech, and Elon Musk eager to dismantle the CFPB and throw consumers to the wolves, it’s no wonder their allies in Congress are mounting yet another legislative assault on the CFPB,” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform. “As has been the case for most of its 14-year history, the CFPB draws fire from the industries it oversees precisely because it does its job well. Money back in consumer pockets is less money for the financial services industry, as it should be.”

AFR’s statement for the record, available at this link, identifies some of the legislative threats posed by bills that were introduced at the hearing, including distorting the CFPB’s mission to promote industry interests, eliminating the CFPB’s secure funding stream, undermining its decisive leadership, and creating new, duplicative hurdles that would make it harder for the CFPB to protect people. The statement also outlines the many ways in which a well-run CFPB can and has served the interests of millions of people around the country.

• The CFPB has obtained $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people through restitution or cancelled debts.
• The CFPB has returned $363 million to servicemembers and veterans through 39 enforcement actions.
• Industry stakeholders who understand housing finance support the CFPB, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Homebuilders, and the National Association of Realtors.

Recent polling shows strong bipartisan support for the CFPB’s mission as well as its rules lowering overdraft fees, tracking small business lending inequalities, and prohibiting medical debt from appearing on credit reports. Key findings include:

• Over eight in ten Americans (82%) believe it is important to regulate financial services to ensure they are fair for consumers.
• Seven in ten Americans (70%) support limiting the dollar amount banks can charge in overdraft fees to $5 or only what the overdraft costs them with no additional profit.
• Two thirds of Americans (66%) support keeping a CFPB rule to stop medical debts from being included on credit reports.
• Two thirds of Americans (67%) favor the CFPB, including solid majorities across party lines; favorability for the CFPB has been consistently very high over the past decade.
• Most Americans (53%) support requiring banks to report information on their small business lending to track inequalities in access to credit for rural, women, Black, Latino, and Asian small business owners.

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