CFPB Releases Revised Strategic Plan for 2018-2022
Despite having only issued a 5-year strategic plan back in October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a new strategic plan under the guidance of interim director Mick Mulvaney. Having only been on the job a few months, the CFPB’s revised strategic plan reinforces a massive shift in agency priorities as Republicans finally assert authority over the consumer watchdog previously under Democratic influence.
The plan is buttressed by three major goals for the new look consumer agency:
- Ensure that all consumers have access to markets for consumer financial products and services.
- Implement and enforce the law consistently to ensure that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive.
- Foster operational excellence through efficient and effective processes, governance, and security of resources and information.
Interim Director Mulvaney had this to say about the plan:
“If there is one way to summarize the strategic changes occurring at the Bureau, it is this: we have committed to fulfill the Bureau’s statutory responsibilities, but go no further. By hewing to the statute, this Strategic Plan provides the Bureau a ready roadmap, a touchstone with a fixed meaning that should serve as a bulwark against the misuse of our unparalleled powers.”
As for the treatment of tribes and tribal lending entities by the CFPB, Mulvaney recommitted to respecting tribal sovereignty in a message accompanying the new plan. He wrote, “Pushing the envelope also risks trampling upon the liberties of our citizens, or interfering with the sovereignty or autonomy of the states or Indian tribes. I have resolved that this will not happen at the Bureau.”
Mulvaney’s predecessor, Richard Cordray, had a history of threatening tribal sovereignty through irresponsible enforcement actions. Mulvaney has pledged to end the agency’s command and control mentality often coalescing in regulation through enforcement by striking a more cooperative and data-driven approach early in his tenure with the Bureau. The agency’s new strategic plan is another step in mending the fractured relationship the CFPB had developed with tribal lenders.
