ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION

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Rep. Hensarling Leaked Memo Shows He's Gearing Up To Weaken CFPB

Representative Jeb Hensarling, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is gearing up to move ahead with legislation that would greatly weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

According to a report by The New York Times, citing a leaked memo by Hensarling, the Republican from Texas, who has long been a critic of the CFPB, detailed in the memo plans to weaken the CFPB leadership by enabling President Trump to replace the director at any time. Legislation would also limit the CFPB's enforcement authority, which would reduce its ability to set rules. The memo also called for the consumer complaint system to be repealed. Under the lawmaker's legislation, the CFPB's enforcement tools would be reduced, preventing it from being able to pursue businesses that take part in deceptive practices. What's more, the legislation would restrict the CFPB's oversight and restrict its ability to go after large publicly traded companies that are already regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"This would substantially change the structure of the CFPB and greatly limits the scope of its authority," said Hunter Wiggins, former principal deputy enforcement director at the bureau, in the NYT report. Reaction to the leaked memo was swift among incensed Democrats who are trying to protect the CFPB from President Trump and the Republicans. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, slammed Hensarling's plan, telling NYT that Republicans are trying to make the CFPB ineffective. "It took less than three weeks for House Republicans to show their hand on how they will renege on candidate Trump's campaign promises to hold Wall Street accountable and help working Americans," Brown said after reviewing the memo in the report.

Last week, Hensarling laid out his disdain for the CFPB in an article for The Wall Street Journal in which he described the CFPB as a so-called "rogue agency" created to be "insulated" from oversight on the part of the congress, president and voters. "The regulatory web spun by the CFPB can make every provider of financial services guilty until proven innocent, inviting selective enforcement and financial shakedowns," he said in the article. PYMNTS.COM

Fannie Mae executive is among candidates as CFPB boss

The White House is considering a top official at Fannie Mae to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

Brian Brooks is currently the mortgage financing giant's general counsel and has close ties to Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin. Brooks represented several of the investors in Mnuchin's purchase of failed subprime mortgage lender IndyMac for $1.6 billion in 2009. The bank was renamed OneWest, and Brooks joined the company as vice chairman.

He left the bank for Fannie Mae in 2014, shortly before OneWest was acquired by CIT Group.

Brooks is among several names being considered for the top job at the agency, which was founded to protect consumers from abuse by financial institutions.

A White House spokesman said last month that the administration had met with former Rep. Randy Neugebauer - a vocal critic of the CFPB - about serving as director. Also on the short list is Todd Zywicki, an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, according to the sources. Read the story at CNBC

Dems Say CFPB Would Sue If Director Ousted By Trump

On Tuesday (Jan. 17) top Democrats announced plans to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if President-elect Donald Trump moves forward with removing Richard Cordray as head of the CFPB upon being sworn in later this week, American Banker reported.

Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts held a conference call with reporters in which they stated they would pursue legal action if any attempt is made to end Cordray's term prematurely.

"Do not tell Richard Cordray he's fired," Sen. Schumer said in comments directed at Trump, according to American Banker. "We think the odds are high a legal challenge would work, and we are urging the administration to forgo that long process and keep Cordray."

A heated battle over the CFPB's funding structure and leadership structure has been brewing since late last year, leaving its future in 2017 looking quite uncertain.

"No agency head has been fired for cause for a century - it is an extreme and unprecedented step," Warren told reporters during the call. "It would be a real battle."

The CFPB has been controversial since its start, particularly the wide-ranging and nearly unchecked powers of its director and a funding structure that leaves it largely independent of congressional oversight, since it doesn't need them to fund what it does. But given that most pundits and professional politics watchers were predicting a third Democratic president - if anything, most were predicting business as usual.

That calculus all went straight out the window on Nov. 8 when Donald Trump - an avowed opponent of Dodd-Frank, which gave the CFPB its life - actually won the White House. Among his earliest promises? Dismantling Dodd-Frank. Read the story at PYMNTS.COM

How Much Money Does the Average American Have in Their Bank Account?

Despite living in what is likely the wealthiest nation to ever have existed, Americans sure are having a hard time getting by. As most people are well aware of at this point, wage stagnation and numerous structural economic changes over the years have led to a shrinking middle class, fewer and fewer "good" jobs, and calls for political policies that were once thought to be too poisonous to touch - like a $15 minimum wage, for example.

Given that most people are, relatively speaking, doing just fine, what do Americans have to whine about? We have refrigerators, televisions, smartphones - all things that are inconceivable in many parts of the world, even to this day. But still, people can't escape the feeling that the screws continue to turn. While facing even more uncertainty about the future, Americans are turning to strongmen political figures or false hopes that things will turn in their favor.

Are Americans truly struggling? It's impossible to levy one simple judgment that encapsulates everyone in the country, but we can look at averages. And a good place to start is to look at how much money the average person has in their bank account.

Even this might not paint the most accurate picture, as incredibly high earners and billionaires can skew the numbers quite a bit, while those who are deep in debt will still have some money in an account somewhere, but it does give us a starting point.

As for how much the average American has in their bank account, all signs point to $4,436 - a number that comes from a study by bank consulting firm Moebs Services in 2014. This is an amount that accounts for averages in people's checking accounts specifically, and was notable a couple of years ago because it represented a significant jump from 2012's numbers. What's even more amazing is how much higher that figure is than it was in 2007, just prior to the Great Recession. Read the story at the CHEATSHEET

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