NEW LIST: On CFPB’s birthday, the agency’s top actions so far in 2024 to protect consumers

Nation’s top consumer protection agency facing Congressional attacks following Supreme Court decision on funding

WASHINGTON — In honor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) 13th birthday on Sunday, July 21, U.S. PIRG is releasing a list of the strongest actions that the federal agency took in the first half of 2024 (plus a new one just this week) to protect U.S. consumers. The 11 highlighted measures show how crucial the agency is to Americans. Despite the CFPB helping their — and all U.S. — constituents, Congressional opponents are trying to weaken the bureau. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of the CFPB in a case that the payday lending industry filed questioning the legality of the CFPB’s funding mechanism.

“Even though the Supreme Court made it clear that the CFPB’s funding is a settled matter, it’s no surprise that special interests keep lobbying like-minded Congress members to attack this crucial agency,” said Mike Litt, PIRG’s consumer campaign director. “Congress should make sure those critics don’t keep the CFPB from receiving its reliable and constitutional source of funding so it can keep doing its job for the public interest.”

HR 8773, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2025, would strip the CFPB of its reliable source of funding and subject it to the annual congressional appropriations process. The bill would also block the CFPB from implementing its registry of non-bank offenders and ban on excessive credit card late fees, two actions highlighted in U.S. PIRG’s list. 

U.S. PIRG’s ‘Top Ten’ actions taken by the CFPB to protect consumers in the first half of 2024, in chronological order (plus a bonus July action):

1. Proposing a rule to curb overly punitive overdraft fees (January)
2. Proposing to prohibit abusive non-sufficient funds fees (January)
3. Reining in rigged results for comparison-shopping tools (February)
4. Banning excessive credit card late fees (March)
5. Processing a record number of consumer complaints (March)
6. Surpassing more than $1 billion in total payments from its victims relief fund (May)
7. Holding “Buy Now, Pay Later” companies accountable (May)
8. Launching an inquiry into mortgage closing costs (May)
9. Creating a registry to help identify repeat offenders (June)
10. Proposing to eliminate medical debt from credit reports (June)
11. Bonus: Ensuring paycheck advance products comply with disclosure requirements (July)

“Since opening its doors 13 years ago, the CFPB has recouped $19 billion for consumers, taken more than 350 enforcement actions against companies that broke the law, and processed more than 5.6 million consumer complaints against financial companies. That’s a remarkable track record for any federal agency, especially one that’s just becoming a teenager,” said Litt. “Cheers to 13 years and many more.”

Mike Litt is available for interviews on any of the topics in our list, or the CFPB in general.