Blog

My kids were so excited when I asked them if they wanted to come to work with me today. At ages 6 and 9, this will be their first Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. The CFPB is focused on consumer financial products and services, so we are using today to teach our children about personal finances – our theme is Spend Save Share.

This is also a good opportunity for all parents to teach their children a little something about money. It’s a chance to talk about how parents work for money, and how our salaries give us a limited amount of money to spend every month. Parents can also talk about how they have to use some of that money to pay for the family’s needs, like food, clothing and shelter, and how we might have to save for other things we want.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was fortunate to be born in the digital era. We’ve been able to rethink many of the practices that make financial products confusing to consumers and certain regulations burdensome for businesses.

Many of the things we’re doing are new to government, which has made them difficult to achieve. But the hard part lies ahead. Our goal is not to tie the Bureau to 2012’s technology, but to create something that stays modern and relevant – no matter the year. Good internal technology policies can help, especially the policy that governs our use of software source code. We are unveiling that policy today. Read more.

The Dodd-Frank Act requires the CFPB to share consumer complaint information with the FTC and other state and federal agencies. The goal is to make sure agencies coordinate their enforcement of consumer financial protection laws. Recently, we signed an agreement with the FTC that moves us one step closer to achieving that goal. The agreement […]

Today, the CFPB is issuing its second spending update. As we stated in our last update, the goal of these releases is to provide you with a snapshot of how we are spending funds so you can gain a broader perspective on how we are using our resources to fulfill our mission.

What do tap water, your eyeglasses, and the Consumer Bureau all have in common? They’re all better when they’re transparent! Okay, that was a pretty bad joke. But it reflects something we take very seriously here at the Bureau: That transparency is a core value, and that living by it will make us a better […]

Today, the CFPB is issuing its first spending update. In our spending update, we will provide a snapshot of quarterly and year-to-date spending and the funds we have received. We will provide a description of major purchases or financial commitments we have made during the quarter. The goal of these updates is to provide you […]

One of the most popular features on this site is an interactive copy of Elizabeth Warren’s calendar, which includes an RSS feed and the raw calendar data. We think it is already the richest, most detailed leadership calendar that a .gov web site has offered to date, and we hope to make it even better. […]

Last week, Professor Warren testified before Congress on our progress in building the consumer bureau. She talked about the many ways in which the CFPB is accountable to Congress, and to you, the public we’re here to serve. From her testimony: “The CFPB was designed to increase accountability by consolidating into a single agency the […]

This week, I’ll be headed to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. I’m looking forward to testifying on our progress in building the CFPB and highlighting our efforts to promote openness and accountability. The timing couldn’t be better: it’s Sunshine Week, a national effort focused […]

A couple weeks ago, we asked you to submit your suggestions on building an effective new consumer bureau. Since then, we’ve been taking some of these suggestions and asking members of our team to record video responses. Some of them are pretty camera shy – and some aren’t – but once they started talking about […]