PHOENIX – Legislation to change the CFPB into an independent commission and replace its one director with a board may soon move out of the House Financial Services Committee, according to CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan.
Donovan shared the news at a Sept. 23 session during the CUNA Community Credit Union and The Federation 2015 Annual Conferences at the Sheraton Downtown. Roughly 260 credit union industry executives registered to attend all or part of the meeting, the organization said.
Donovan told attendees that the Obama Administration had gone on the record as adamantly opposing the idea for some time, but recently, officials appeared more open to the possibility.
"I think they might be thinking of their legacy and they are also thinking of the possibility that the next president might be a Republican," Donovan said.
Change proponents have argued that moving from a single executive structure to a commission structure would make the agency more stable and less subject to severe political change based on administrative changes.
Donovan said there has been significant bipartisan support for the measure among members of the House Financial Services Committee, as well as discussions around funding.
"The thing is, to do this it will cost the government some money," Donovan said. "So there was some talk about how to pay for it, and we opposed a measure to have banks and credit unions pay for it."
Donovan suggested some compromise had been reached and hoped the bill would move out of the committee next week.
"We have a long, long way to go on this one," Donovan said, adding that CUNA lobbyists had been making some progress.
CUNA Chief Economist Bill Hampel followed Donovan during the session, providing a generally upbeat but sobering evaluation of the economy this year and into the next 18 months.
Hampel noted that consumer debt remains at high enough level to likely hold down demand for loans, at least as compared to the demand leading up to the Great Recession. He also noted that the current high quality of automobiles meant that the auto finance industry was unlikely to return to a model of financing new car purchases for most consumers every three to four years.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
