WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 Reuters - The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to confirm Rohit Chopra, widely praised by progressives for long defending Americans from predatory financial firms and students from the insurmountable debt often incurred through deceptive private loans.
Joe Biden, currently a member of the Federal Trade Commission, is expected to begin his new role next week as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) The agency will be crucial for the White House as it tries to address social inequities noted by the pandemic.
While Biden nominated Chopra earlier this year, the U.S. Senate, over which Democrats have a wafer thin majority, has been slow to confirm https: www.reuters.com / www.uniformstate.org/. com world US white-house - faced with - slow pace - Senate confirmations - nominations - 2021 - 08 - 11 a number of agency heads due to Republican resistance.
In the meantime, CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio has worked tirelessly toward an aggressive agenda, cracking down on mortgage servicers as Americans struggled during pandemic locks. He also revoked Trump-era policies that had undermined the agency's ability to punish companies for abusive behavior, while stepping up enforcement against fintech firms.
As well as doing all these issues, Chopra is expected to focus on abusive lending rates and exorbitant debt collection practices and address the student debt burden and gaps in non-minorities' access to credit.
The CFPB has been a global lightning rod since its creation after the 2009 global financial crisis. Democrats discredit it as a guardian of ordinary Americans, but Republicans view it as too powerful and unaccountable.
The Trump administration has attempted to turn the CFPB into an agency more interested in protecting loan sharks and hardworking consumers than predatory consumers said Lisa Gilbert, a vice president of the Washington-based consumer advocacy, Public Citizen. We welcome the return of an experienced consumer advocate to lead the agency and work in behalf of consumers.