Four members have been named to a new taskforce that will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and financial services providers and report findings to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency said in a release Thursday.
The Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, for which the CFPB solicited membership applications last October, is expected to provide bureau Director Kathleen (“Kathy”) Kraninger with recommendations for ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations.
The bureau says the taskforce is modeled on a commission created by the 1968 Consumer Credit Protection Act. The CFPB doesn’t note this, but that 1968 statute created the National Commission on Consumer Finance to study and make recommendations on the need for further regulation of the consumer finance industry.
“The Taskforce will produce new research and legal analysis of consumer financial laws in the United States, focusing specifically on harmonizing, modernizing, and updating the federal consumer financial laws – and their implementing regulations – and identifying gaps in knowledge that should be addressed through research, ways to improve consumer understanding of markets and products, and potential conflicts or inconsistencies in existing regulations and guidance,” the bureau said in Thursday’s release.
Kraninger, in a statement, said, “The Taskforce will conduct a thorough examination of our current regulatory framework and report on how we can improve federal consumer financial laws to benefit and protect consumers.”
Taskforce members are:
- Todd J. Zywicki (designated the taskforce chair), professor of law at George Mason University (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School, Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and former Executive Director of the GMU Law and Economics Center.
- Howard Beales, III, former professor of strategic management and public policy at the George Washington University and former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC);
- Thomas Durkin, senior economist (retired) at the Federal Reserve Board;
- Jean Noonan, partner at Hudson Cook, former general counsel at the Farm Credit Administration, and former associate director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Credit Practice at the FTC.
The CFPB also said Matt Cameron (no details provided) will be the taskforce’s staff director.
RR: Based on 50-plus year-old model, Bureau to set up task force to ‘strengthen, improve’ consumer protection law, rules (Oct. 11, 2019)