For all the talk about legal challenges to the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at least one group of consumer lenders has no intention of stepping into the fray.
"I want to make it perfectly clear, we are not suing our regulator," Bill Himpler, executive vice president for federal affairs at the American Financial Services Association, told an audience of bank lawyers on Tuesday. His trade group's members include nonbank installment and automotive lenders.
During a panel discussion about the newly-empowered CFPB, Himpler offered some rare industry praise for the agency's staff and for President Obama's political instincts in appointing Cordray.
"I have to tip my hat to the president," Himpler said. "This was a great political play. It plays to the themes he was running on," primarily in "cleaning up Wall Street."
Himpler mentioned Rick Hackett, the CFPB's deputy assistant director for installment lending, and called the agency's staff "very professional, very thoughtful."
"There is a receptivity [by the CFPB] to learn and that's very refreshing," Himpler said. "They want to get it right so to a certain extent that creates a level of comfort, but there are other signals that still leave lingering heartburn."
There is some concern how the agency will define large nonbank participants and how much weight it will give consumer complaints, he said.
The Dodd-Frank Act gives the CFPB supervisory power of all sizes of companies in the mortgage, payday lending and private student loan markets. But it can supervise only larger companies involved in consumer installment loans, money transmitting and debt collection. The agency must issue a final rule defining such "large participants" by July 21.
