CFPB Offers Recommendations to Enhance Consumer Protection in the Financial Marketplace

The CFPB Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law (the "Taskforce") offered recommendations on enhancing consumer protection in the financial marketplace.

The Taskforce recommended, among other things, that the CFPB, Congress and state and federal regulators:

• authorize the CFPB to provide licenses to non-depository institutions providing lending, money transmission and payments services;

• increase access for unbanked and underbanked consumers to the payment system;

• simplify access for creditors to immigrants' credit information prior to their arrival in the United States;

• research and create policies that address (i) the specific challenges faced by formerly incarcerated individuals and (ii) the issues of financial inclusion in rural communities;

• develop a means of independent review of the CFPB's cost-benefit analyses; and

• clarify the responsibilities of consumer reporting agencies and furnishers with regard to Fair Credit Reporting Act disputes.

In a statement, CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger explained that the report's recommendations would not require the CFPB to "build a new path forward," but would enable it to improve its existing framework for consumer financial law and regulation.