Washington Update In an American Banker op-ed earlier this year, I called out the CFPB under the leadership of Rohit Chopra as a “regulator gone rogue.” I’m not alone in my criticism: in September, 12 Republican lawmakers took the bureau to task over what they called a “radical and highly-politicized agenda unbounded by statutory limits.” Unfortunately, the bureau has continued to push legal boundaries on several different fronts in recent months. First, the bureau has waged an aggressive PR campaign against so-called “junk fees” – using a term it coined to demonize the legitimate fees, including overdraft fees, that banks charge consumers for the products and services they offer. Throwing these fees in with things like concert ticket processing fees, resort fees and other surprise fees charged by retailers and hospitality businesses was a deliberate move to confuse the public about the well-disclosed fees they currently pay. (For the record, banks don’t charge resort or ticket fees, nor does the CFPB have authority to regulate those types of fees.) Another alarming step by the Chopra bureau was its decision to update the UDAAP section of its exam manual in a way that fundamentally upends the regulatory approach to fair lending supervision and enforcement, without providing industry stakeholders or the public the opportunity to provide feedback through the notice and comment process under the Administrative Procedure Act. Instead, the CFPB chose to take a back-door route to expand its authority – giving itself the ability to examine for alleged disparate treatment or impact Reining in a Regulator Gone Rogue Rob Nichols, President and CEO, American Bankers Association 14
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