Oct. 26, 2012 – NAFCU is disappointed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2013-18 strategic plan fails to properly address payday lenders and other bad actors while signaling that credit unions will remain subject to unnecessary regulatory burden, the association said in a comment letter Thursday.
In the letter, NAFCU Executive Vice President of Government Affairs Dan Berger said the plan “simply misses the target that Congress set for the agency.” Congress called for the creation of the agency to "help protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts,” Berger said, yet the CFPB’s plan does not target unregulated entities such as nonbanks and payday lenders.
Credit unions, Berger pointed out, did not cause the financial crisis that triggered the Dodd-Frank Act. Moreover, they are consumer-friendly lending institutions that do not engage in unscrupulous practices – a fact that “CFPB officials have acknowledged numerous times.” Given that, he wrote, “it is unnecessary for the CFPB to impose greatly burdensome regulations on credit unions.”
The CFPB’s 2013-18 strategic plan contains four key goals:
- prevent financial harm to consumers while promoting good practices that benefit consumers;
- empower consumers to live better financial lives;
- inform the public, policymakers and the CFPB's own policymaking with data-driven analysis of consumer finance markets and behavior; and
- advance the CFPB's performance by maximizing resource productivity and enhancing impact.
The plan also outlines the strategies the agency will use to achieve the desired outcomes.