The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has named four members to serve on its new Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. The bureau commissioned the taskforce’s formation in October to develop ideas for harmonizing and modernizing laws and regulations designed to protect consumers’ financial interests.
The taskforce will be chaired by Todd Zywicki, who was considered for the director’s role at the CFPB despite his vocal disdain for the agency. Zywicki is a law professor at George Mason University (GMU) Antonin Scalia Law School, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute and a former executive director of the GMU Law and Economics Center.
The CFPB also has designated Matt Cameron to serve as group’s staff director. Cameron has served at the bureau in several capacities since joining the agency in April 2012.
The taskforce will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and the financial industry and recommend changes that could be beneficial to all stakeholders. The taskforce will provide its recommendations to CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger.
“The taskforce will conduct a thorough examination of our current regulatory framework and report on how we can improve federal consumer financial laws to benefit and protect consumers,” Kraninger said in a press release. “I look forward to the work the taskforce will undertake and reviewing their recommendations.”
Specifically, the taskforce will seek to identify knowledge gaps that should be addressed through research, approaches to help consumers better understand markets and products and potential conflicts or inconsistencies in existing regulations and guidance.
In addition to Zywicki, the newly appointed taskforce members are:
- Dr. J. Howard Beales, III, former professor of strategic management and public policy at the George Washington University and former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission;
- Dr. Thomas Durkin, Senior Economist (retired) at the Federal Reserve; and
- L. Jean Noonan, partner at Hudson Cook, former general counsel at the Farm Credit Administration, and former associate director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Credit Practice at the Federal Trade Commission.
The formation of the taskforce and its mission are inspired by a national commission established in 1968 by the Consumer Credit Act (CCA). The commission created in accordance with CCA also was tasked with developing recommendations for improving consumer financial laws. The key difference between the commission and the CFPB’s taskforce is the commission submitted its recommendations to Congress, whereas the bureau’s taskforce will report to Kraninger.