CFPB director focuses on ‘remediating harm at scale’ with record fines on big banks

The news: To focus on making an example of big banks and repeat offenders—those firms whom Director Rohit Chopra calls “the most well-financed defendants”—the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has reduced the number of cases it’s settled or litigated, per an interview that Chopra gave to Bloomberg Law.

Fewer but bigger: Cases against large firms like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, TransUnion, and MoneyGram have led to two of the agency’s largest-ever settlements, even as it has pursued fewer cases against debt collectors, credit repair organizations, and other smaller companies.

• Under Chopra, the CFPB has filed 32 enforcement actions, including negotiated settlements and contested litigation, between October 12, 2021, and July 14, 2023, according to Bloomberg Law’s review of agency records.
• Under Chopra’s predecessor, Kathy Kraninger, the CFPB filed 71 enforcement actions between December 2018 and January 2021.

From small to big: During Kraninger’s tenure, by contrast, no one was “too small for the CFPB’s attention,” according to former CFPB enforcement attorney Jenny Lee.

• Kraninger’s team took action against regional banks, including Citizens Financial Group, Fifth Third, and the Chicago-area mortgage lender Townshend Financial.
• By contrast, Chopra said that he seeks to “remediate harm at scale.” He considers state financial regulators and attorneys general as potential partners who are better equipped to prosecute smaller firms.
• Last May, the CFPB encouraged state agencies to bring parallel enforcement actions, even where the CFPB is bringing its own case, in an effort to get states more involved.

Our take: The CFPB’s mandate appears to shift according to whoever’s in charge. Its critics say that lack of accountability predisposes the CFPB director to abuse the agency’s authority. It’s also been accused of regulation by enforcement. And the Supreme Court will be reviewing at its next term whether the agency’s funding mechanism is constitutional. (It’s not funded by Congress, but through requests to the Federal Reserve Board.)

That pending legal question has slowed the CFPB’s enforcement activities. But potential defendants to CFPB actions that are sensitive about reputational damage should still consider negotiating settlements—even if litigation could be stayed or delayed another year by the looming appeals case.