Leadership In Banking?

The U.S. Comptroller of the Currency is, among other things, a banking oversight agency.  The Comptroller Joseph Otting recently emailed banks across the country to outline his recent meeting with Mick Mulvaney, Director of the OMB and acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another banking oversight agency. 

Otting said he and Mulvaney discussed ways to "work together" to meet everyone's needs and "ensure banks treat customers fairly and comply with laws and regulations."  (Sounds lovely.)  He said he was "impressed by Mick's leadership, emphasis on efficiency, and on [eliminating] unnecessary regulatory burden and overreach."  He applauded Mulvaney for "realigning his agency's mission to meet the current needs of our nation." 

A friend and regular reader received the Comptroller's email in a Facebook post from a friend of his, a small banker in Florida.  This banker thought that Otting's message was just wonderful, so he shared it, along with his own complaints about "maddening over-regulation" and "ridiculous, onerous demands" from the feds which, in his mind, caused many small banks to fail.  He obviously considers the CFPB to be a gummint bad guy out to get him.

That's one opinion.  Here's another.

There's an area within the CFPB that's responsible for imposing penalties on banks/lenders showing patterns of long-term, systematic, illegal discrimination against minorities -- mainly, a history of allowing non-whites to pay higher loan rates than whites.  That section has now been stripped of its enforcement powers by Mulvaney, who said those staffers will now report directly to him and will focus on "advocacy, coordination and education."  No more oversight, no more enforcement, no more penalties.  In other words, "Hey bankers!  You may now resume your racist, red-lining lending practices."  (Yes, not all lenders have such inclinations, but some do, and it's illegal.)

Mulvaney is a stooge charged with destroying the agency he leads.  He decreed the end of the investigation into the Equifax data breach affecting 145 million consumers.  He's backed off from enforcement and lawsuits against payday lenders, saying he doesn't want to cripple those fine predatory folks who are somehow permitted to lend money at effective APR's of 300 to 500%!!!  He has requested zero future funding -- a $0 budget.  He'll just blow through the cash on hand then throw up his hands and say, "Gosh, folks, we're broke.  Guess we need to close up shop."

Is that "leadership"?  Are those "the nation's current needs"?  Only if we need to be led straight down the toilet.

The CFPB was created for good and obvious reasons, just like, say, the Truth In Lending Act of 50 years ago.  A necessary agency and a necessary law.  They are the good guys.  In both cases, the banking industry -- on the whole -- fought against them.

Note to the Trumpenstein Administration -- It's called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not the Bankers Protection Bureau.