The CFPB published a Notice and Request for Comment in the Federal Register on June 29, 2011, identifying six markets for consumer financial products and services being considered as markets in which “larger participants” will be subject to CFPB supervision. The six markets are:
- debt collection
- consumer reporting
- consumer credit and related activities
- money transmitting, check cashing, and related activities
- prepaid cards
- debt relief services
Other markets could be added through subsequent CFPB rulemaking. Comments on the Notice are due by August 15, 2011, and the CFPB will also seek input through roundtables with consumer, community, and industry groups. Dodd-Frank gave the CFPB supervisory authority over nondepository institutions considered to be “a larger participant of a market for other consumer financial products or services” and required the CFPB to issue a final rule identifying such larger participants no later than one year from the “designated transfer date,” which is currently scheduled for July 21, 2011.
In the Notice, the CFPB signals the possibility it may issue a separate rule to establish a registration system for nondepository institutions it supervises (something it is authorized to do by Dodd-Frank) and asks if data from that system should be used in determining who is a “larger participant.” In addition to the authority to supervise “larger participants,” Dodd-Frank gave the CFPB authority to supervise, regardless of size, providers of residential mortgage loans and certain related services, payday loans, and private education loans. But as the CFPB itself seems to recognize in the Notice, it cannot supervise or examine those providers until a CFPB Director is in place. The Inspector General of the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Board sent a report to the members of Congress responding to questions about establishment of the CFPB.