The Treasury Department this week appointed a Harvard University economics professor to be in charge of market research at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
As the assistant director for research, Sendhil Mullainathan will be responsible monitoring the marketplace for new financial products and developments that could harm consumers.
The research is "not just academic," said Peggy Twohig, who is in charge of supervision and examination of nonbank lenders at CFPB. "The job is to understand the marketplace -- who the players are and what the trends are," Twohig said at a recent Women in Housing and Finance forum. Such information will be shared with the enforcement, regulation or supervisory staff at CFPB, she said.
The Treasury Department also hired Patrice Alexander Ficklin to head oversight and enforcement of fair lending laws.
She recently practiced at Relman, Dane & Colfax, a civil rights law firm that has represented several cities that have sued subprime lenders for targeting minority neighborhoods. The cities are seeking compensation for lost tax revenues due to vacant foreclosed houses and blight.
The CFPB is slated to start operations on July 21.
