Mulvaney Says Credit Union Council, Other Panels Are Vital to CFPB
As advisory boards are reactivated, consumer groups call for the dismissal of the CFPB's policy director after reports of racist and sexist blog posts.
Even though he disbanded three advisory boards earlier this year, Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney told the reconstituted panels Thursday that the agency intends to rely on them for vital input on how to better regulate financial institutions.
“We are going to do a much better job of regulating if we understand the real world,” Mulvaney told the newly appointed panels at their first meeting.
During the meeting of the Credit Union Advisory Council, CFPB officials said that Rick Schmidt, president/CEO of WestStar Credit Union, has been appointed chairman of the council. Schmidt is the chairman of the Nevada Credit Union Board of Directors.
Mulvaney disbanded the previous credit union advisory panel and fired its members in June. At the same time, he disbanded community bank and consumer advisory panels. Members of those panels had been appointed by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
Those advisory groups also met Thursday, focusing on fintech and the use of alternative credit data by financial institutions.
The panels are much smaller than they had been under Cordray. Mulvaney said he intends to have the panels meet on the same day. The panels will meet separately and then meet in a joint session. In the past, the committees met on separate days.
The new charter called fox six members for the credit union group, but seven were appointed.
Meanwhile, in other agency business, consumer groups on Thursday called on Mulvaney to fire Eric Blankenstein, a policy director at the bureau, following a Washington Post story that said, as a student at the University of Virginia in 2004, he authored racist blogs and said the majority of hate crimes are hoaxes.
At the CFPB, Blankenstein oversees fair lending issues.
In the Post story, Blankenstein admitted he was the author of the objectionable posts.
“With such abhorrent views, Eric Blankenstein shouldn’t be let anywhere near the CFPB’s fair lending division let alone running it. Mulvaney must fire him immediately,” Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress, said, following the story
“Whether it’s dismantling offices within the agency charged with fighting discrimination in lending, or limiting enforcement of existing law, Mick Mulvaney’s CFPB is trying to turn back the clock on racial and economic justice,” Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, said. “Having someone with these views in a senior management position — and in fact in charge of ensuring fair lending — is a part of advancing his agenda of enabling discrimination by Wall Street and predatory lenders.”