CFPB Director Richard Cordray was among the speakers at a program last week celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Residential Mortgage Diversion Program. The Diversion Program, which began in 2008, was the first city-sponsored plan in the nation to facilitate face-to-face negotiations between mortgage lenders and borrowers in connection with troubled loans.
In his remarks, Director Cordray discussed the CFPB’s mortgage rules and supervisory authority over nonbanks. He also highlighted the CFPB’s consumer complaint system.
The Philadelphia program received attention at the joint FTC-CFPB roundtable on the debt collection industry held in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Among the concerns discussed at the roundtable was the high non-appearance rate of debtors in debt collection court cases. The roundtable speakers included Judge Annette Rizzo, who had invited Director Cordray to speak at the Philadelphia celebration. Judge Rizzo sits on the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia (First Judicial District) and the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board. At the roundtable, she spoke about the Diversion Program as a model solution to the non-appearance problem.