CFPB Director Chopra Affirms Agency’s Priorities Before Senate Committee

On April 26, 2022, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) Director Rohit Chopra spoke before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (“Committee”) and outlined the CFPB's commitments in conjunction with the CFPB’s submission of the Semiannual Report to Congress.

The CFPB’s efforts are as follows:

• Focusing Enforcement on Repeat Offenders and Other Major Market Actors

  • Chopra committed to refusing leniency to large businesses committing multiple violations of the law, which the CFPB and other federal enforcers have apparently permitted in the past. According to Chopra, such allowances are “highly inappropriate.” The CFPB will shift enforcement resources “away from investigating small firms and instead focusing on repeat offenders and large players engaged in large-scale harm.”

• Enhancing Transparency Through Guidance

  • The CFPB will “dramatically increase its issuance of guidance documents, such as advisory opinions, compliance bulletins, policy statements, and other publications.”

• Rethinking Approach to Regulations

  • Chopra committed to ensuring that the CFPB “takes meaningful steps to carry out legislative directives,” as opposed to permitting the agency to ignore them, which Chopra claims was occurring prior to her appointment as Director.

• Listening and Learning from the Business Community

  • A key priority will be to engage with institutions “without direct access to the CFPB, including small banks and credit unions,” as Chopra stated these institutions have not had sufficient opportunity to influence the policies and approaches of the CFPB in the same manner as large institutions.

• Promoting Competition

  • The CFPB will continue to make strides in taking action which promotes competition amongst financial institutions, such as the efforts that it has made in the last year regarding the removal or minimization of “junk fees.”

• Preparing for the Era of Big Tech and Big Data in Banking

  • As new technologies and systems are developed and implemented into the financial sector, the CFPB will create policies which further the advancement of the United States and sector while also acting to mitigate the serious risks that can accompany these innovative efforts, like privacy issues, fraud, or discrimination.