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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is opening a new office, the Office of Competition and Innovation, as part of a new approach to help spur innovation in financial services by promoting competition and identifying stumbling blocks for new market entrants. The office will replace the Office of Innovation that focused on an application-based process to confer special regulatory treatment on individual companies. The new office will support a broader initiative by the CFPB to analyze obstacles to open markets, better understand how big players are squeezing out smaller players, host incubation events, and, in general, make it easier for people to switch financial providers.

Company to Regularly Report Lending and Compliance Information to the Bureau

I am glad to be with you today to hear firsthand about the latest innovations in consumer financial services. These innovations seem to be generating considerable interest and optimism about the future. They are driving new services for consumers and transforming how they conduct their finances. 

Report Discusses Market Developments with Potential for Consumer-Friendly Innovation

Thank you.  It is exciting to be here at Money 20/20 and see all of the intense interest around innovation in consumer financial services. The possibilities opened up by powerful technologies and novel approaches are enabling new services and transforming how payments and lending are conducted.

Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me today. It is good to be here with so many people who have similar goals and ideals. The thread that ties us together is our shared commitment to the goal of empowering the economically vulnerable among us. At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we understand our ultimate goal is to make sure every consumer counts.

Project Also Finds Savings Persist After Offers End

Bureau Publishes Policy to Reduce Potential Regulatory Uncertainty for Innovative Products that Promise Significant Consumer Benefits WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a policy to facilitate consumer access to financial products and services that promise substantial benefit to consumers. The new policy establishes a process for companies to apply for […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a Project Catalyst research pilot to analyze the effectiveness of certain practices designed to encourage positive saving habits. The research will focus on saving behavior among low- and moderate-income prepaid card users who often do not have access to traditional savings accounts and who may face unique challenges building regular saving habits.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a Project Catalyst research pilot to explore ways to encourage saving among consumers at tax time. The pilot will focus in particular on tax-time saving practices among low-income consumers in order to help them improve their long-term financial well-being. The initiative will inform work at the Bureau to promote consumer saving and support its mission to empower consumers to lead better financial lives.

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a Project Catalyst research pilot to examine the effectiveness of early intervention credit counseling for consumers who are at risk of default on their credit card debt. The research can help improve understanding of strategies that may help consumers struggling with credit card debt avoid defaulting and harming their credit reports. The initiative will inform the Bureau’s work and support its mission to empower consumers to lead better financial lives.

Testimony of Meredith Fuchs General Counsel, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Chairman Hensarling, Ranking Member Waters, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today on the impact of regulation on financial markets and institutions. My name is Meredith Fuchs and it is my privilege to serve as General Counsel at the […]

As part of its Project Catalyst initiative, and in line with its statutory authority, the Bureau’s goal is to encourage banks, credit unions, and other financial services companies to propose and conduct trial disclosure programs.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which created the CFPB, authorized the CFPB to facilitate innovation and to approve trial disclosure programs.

The Bureau views this project as an important means of fulfilling its mandate under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to give all consumers access to fair, transparent, competitive, and innovative markets.

We believe that good, consumer-friendly innovation holds great potential for achieving our mission of making the consumer finance market work again for consumers. We want to help as much as we can to stimulate innovation in financial products and services.