CFPB Looks Forward to Tech, After a Year Focused on Mortgages and Lending Practices

Predicting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s agenda for 2022 based on this year’s rulemaking isn’t quite as easy this year, as the bureau was without a permanent director until mid-October, when Rohit Chopra was sworn in.

The CFPB was fairly open about that, noting in its Spring 2021 Regulatory Agenda statement that it expected “that its new Director, when confirmed, will assess further what regulatory actions the Bureau should prioritize to best further our consumer protection mission and mandate, particularly in light of the ongoing pandemic and resulting economic crisis and the Bureau’s commitment to promoting racial equity.”

However, Chopra’s confirmation hearings give a good perspective on the coming year. He noted the growing indebtedness of families, and the growing number of Americans struggling financially as the various rent and mortgage forbearance programs end.

He also gave a great deal of focus to the growing need to scrutinize big tech firms’ policies and actions as they move deeper into consumer financial services — notably how they use personal data collected in transactions, the criteria by which consumers can be kicked off their platforms, their adherence to consumer protection laws, and whether they will seek to block new entrants into the business.

See: In First Official Testimony, CFPB’s Chopra Targets ‘Big Tech’ as Needing More Oversight

Follow the Complaints

It’s not necessarily safe to say that rulemaking will follow complaints. For one thing, the agenda of the administration and the CFPB director will have a big impact. This year, that is also driven by the difficulties imposed on people by the COVID pandemic — which seems to be regaining ground due to the omicron variant — as well as the general political outlook of the Democratic administration.

Notably, mortgage forbearance programs began running out in Q3, and that is likely reflected in the heavy focus on mortgage loans this year. The same political analysis applies to loans.

Read more: From BNPL to Crypto, Former CFPB Official Says ‘Everything Viewed Suspiciously’

Looking at 2021 complaints through Dec. 1, credit reporting accounted for some 276,000 complaints, well over half of the 443,000 complaints received by the CFPB through December 1 of this year.

Debt collection was next, with 64,000, followed by credit cards with about 28,300, checking and savings accounts with 26,000, mortgages with 24,000, money transfer and virtual currency services with 12,600. Loans accounted for the remainder, with 7,100 vehicle loans and lease complaints, 3,800 personal/installment/payday loans, and almost 3,700 student loans.

So, if the numbers are any indication, the CPFB should focus its 2022 rulemaking on credit reporting, followed up by debt collecting.

That certainly doesn’t match its 2021 rulemaking results.

Despite the relatively low number of complaints, loans and leases got the most attention, with four final rules and two more pending. Mortgages were a close second, with four final and one pending rule. Credit reporting got two — one regarding how much credit reporting agencies can charge consumers to see their scores, and another making the agencies work harder at ensuring they match data to the correct consumer.

Money Transfers and Crypto

As the cryptocurrency industry continues to push into the mainstream, the growing, high-level focus on clarifying the vague to non-existent regulations governing it will likely be an ongoing focus in 2022.

Also read: CFPB Expected To Query Tech Giants Over Financial Data Handling

So far, at least, tech giants don’t seem to be having that much trouble with payment apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Out of the 28,000 complaints received under the credit and prepaid card category in 2021, “Mobile or Digital Wallet” accounted for … three.

Another voice: Warren: CFPB Has Power To Stop Crypto Fraud

As for the money transfer and virtual currency services category, of the 13,300 complaints, mobile wallets accounted for roughly 6,000 complaints, and virtual currencies about 2,220 — about double the number in the same period last year. Interestingly, the vast majority of those complaints pretty well mirrored the spring bitcoin bull market, spiking with it in February and plunging in May.

Domestic and international money transfers — 2,900 and 1,200, respectively — accounted for all but a few hundred of the rest.