The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's chief of bank supervision says he will be ready on July 21 to start examining the nation's 110 largest banks.
Then again, Steven Antonakes, assistant director for large bank supervision for the fledgling agency, said he has only 15 examiners on staff thus far.
However, the former Massachusetts banking commissioner (2003-2010) is busy recruiting. He told a Women in Housing and Finance symposium this week that he has received 75 inquiries for examiner posts in the past two weeks. "We expect to be fully functional in the examiner space with regard to banks, thrifts and credit unions come July 21," Antonakes said.
By statute, the CFPB will spring to life on July 21. The Treasury Department has already pulled together a team of 170 workers to serve as the core staff of the new agency.
Antonakes will be responsible for supervising all federally insured depositories with $10 billion or more in assets.
He plans to do point-in-time examinations of banks with up to $100 billion of assets and some form of continuous supervision for larger institutions. "CFPB won’t be adopting a resident examiner program,” he said.
He noted that technical compliance with consumer regulations is important, but the focus of "our energy" will be on protecting consumers. "We want to approach this in a fair and reasonable fashion," he said.
