Key Points
- Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, would likely pick a new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if elected in November.
- The CFPB has become more lax in regulating Wall Street during the Trump administration, according to consumer advocates.
- Many top candidates include current and former CFPB staffers and have ties to Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Consumers are likely to get a new financial watchdog if Joe Biden wins the presidential election next month.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has languished during the Trump administration, making it likely that Biden, if elected, would make leadership changes, according to consumer advocates.
The agency protects consumers from financial abuse and predatory practices in common financial services like credit cards, mortgages and loans.
The agency — an artifact of the Obama administration, when Biden served as vice president — was established in 2011, in the wake of the Great Recession, by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law.
“It’s not that everything at the CFPB is broken,” said Richard Cordray, former director of the agency and an Obama appointee. “[But] they’ve retreated on being aggressive on enforcement and given the green light to financial companies to walk into the gray areas.