Tag: Bank regulation

Wells Fargo was just fined a total of $1 billion by the federal government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It’s the biggest fine ever imposed by the CFPB, an agency created in 2010 under the Dodd-Frank Act as a response to the financial crisis. This is an agency with a target on its back. Speaking to the American Bankers Association conference, Mulvaney said that when he served in Congress, the only lobbyists he met with were ones who had made contributions to his campaigns. Mulvaney suggested the bankers make donations to lawmakers and urge them to support legislation to weaken the powers of the CFPB. No doubt Mulvaney could pass a lie detector test with those statements describing how Washington works. But the CFPB is an independent agency that is supposed to be walled off from politics. Now Mulvaney is under scrutiny for actions he’s taken at the CFPB, such as loosening regulation of the payday lending industry. Politics is one thing, but Americans need to have confidence that the people who make and enforce regulations are not selling their decisions to the highest bidder. And if he can’t do that, President Trump should find another acting director for the agency.