Four Major Problems with the CFPA

by Tita Freeman

As Tom Donohue notes in this McClatchy-Tribune op/ed there is a right way and a wrong way to enhance consumer protection. After presenting the right way, Donohue lists four major problems with the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA):

-One, the agency's authority would be truly expansive, extending far beyond traditional financial services products to a vast segment of the economy, overseeing businesses that have little to do with consumer finance. Everything from advertisers, utilities, lawyers, educational institutions and technology companies could be subject to new regulations simply because of the way they bill customers or because they're vendors to financial firms that offer consumer products.

-Second, the CFPA could restrict access to credit and limit consumer choice at a time when both are essential for revitalizing our economy, creating jobs and getting families back on their feet. Its vague regulatory standards would make it harder for businesses to comply with new regulations. Incredibly, products could be deemed illegal after they're already in the marketplace even if there were no rules on the books prohibiting them. Taken together with the draconian penalties for guessing wrong about the meaning of vague standards, financial institutions would be forced to either stop offering products or offer only the "plain vanilla" products that reduce choices available to consumers today. The resulting new bureaucracy likely would choke off credit to families and small businesses. Banks would be less likely to extend credit in communities and those able to secure credit would see their borrowing costs increase.

-Third, the CFPA would further complicate an already byzantine set of regulations - setting a floor, not a ceiling, for state consumer protection laws. Rather than a uniform national standard that would eliminate the potential for harmful or deceptive products to slip through the cracks, there would be the CFPA and 50 state regulators - each with their own set of rules and interpretations of the CFPA. Companies and their customers would be lost in a maze of confusing and overlapping edicts. State attorneys general would be allowed to sub-contract their responsibilities to their allies and campaign contributors in the plaintiffs' bar.

-Fourth, the CFPA would undermine the safety and soundness of our banking institutions by separating regulation of financial products from regulation of the financial institutions themselves. That approach is not just duplicative and inefficient; it will hamstring the ability of regulators to comprehensively monitor our financial institutions to ensure they are healthy, safe and sound.

We need to solve legitimate shortcomings in our financial system, not create new ones. Learn more at StopTheCFPA.com.