CFPB’s Aim Is to Focus on Prevention, Kraninger Says

The CFPB plans to focus on prevention of harm to consumers and its success should not be measured by the number of enforcement cases it files, agency Director Kathy Kraninger said Wednesday.

“All too often agencies tend to measure their success by outputs,” Kraninger said, in a speech at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

She said that the bureau’s work should be measured by how successful it is in preventing consumer harm.

While critics have lamented the decrease in the number of enforcement actions that have been filed since the Trump Administration has taken office, Kraninger said that she has been examining all pending investigations—a time-consuming effort.

“Enforcement is a more deliberative tool,” she said, adding that the agency is moving “as expeditiously as possible.”

“You now have a director who was not there at the inception of those cases,” she said.

She said that the agency is preparing to issue rules governing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, adding that the rules enforcing the law are outdated.

Those rules will address the number of calls that debt collectors may make in a specific time period, how text messages may be used, and the type of information consumers must receive when taking out a loan,

The director said that the agency also will be holding a series of symposiums on issues confronting the agency. She said the first session will focus on efforts to better define abusive acts or practices.

Kraninger said that the bureau recently started a project, “Start Small, Save Up,” adding that the goal of the bureau’s efforts is to increase the number of Americans who can withstand a financial shock.