The financial services industry can expect a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that doesn’t “push the envelope” when it comes to regulating financial services companies or protecting consumers.
That’s the smaller, quieter vision for the agency CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney laid out in an e-mail sent to staff on Tuesday. In the e-mail, leaked by ProPublica, Mulvaney, who is also the White House budget director, said he has struggled to articulate his central vision for the changes he intends to carry out.
While the previous director, Richard Cordray, sought “to aggressively ‘push the envelope’ in pursuit of the ‘mission’ that we were the ‘good guys’ and the ‘new sheriff in town,’ out to fight the ‘bad guys’ … that is what is going to be different,” Mulvaney said.
“The entire governing philosophy of pushing the envelope frightens me a little,” Mulvaney said. “I hope it would bother you a little as well. … It’s not appropriate for any government entity to ‘push the envelope.’”
Mulvaney was appointed by President Trump and took over the agency despite an attempt by the Barack Obama-appointed Cordray to appoint his own successor. The new director said he shares industry concerns that the CFPB may overstep its authority and create long-lasting damage.
In response to industry concerns, Mulvaney said, the CFPB will only pursue lawsuits if evidence of “quantifiable and unavoidable harm” is found. “If we find that it exists, you can count on us to vigorously pursue the appropriate remedies. If it doesn’t, we won’t go looking for excuses to bring lawsuits.”
Rather than using enforcement actions like lawsuits and fines to rein in bad behavior, Mulvaney said he wants to use rulemaking to curtail abuses.
“This means more formal rulemaking on which financial institutions can rely, and less regulation by enforcement.”
More rulemaking, however, does not track with Mulvaney’s actions since taking over the bureau at the end of November.
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