Chicago Joins CFPB in Information-Sharing Partnership; City Takes Additional Measures

In a first-of-its-kind partnership with a municipality, CFPB Director Richard Cordray and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel jointly announced a framework for sharing of information between the City and the CFPB. Under the agreement, Chicago becomes the first city in the nation to agree to directly report alleged violations of federal consumer financial protection laws and regulations to the CFPB.

Director Cordray’s prepared remarks noted that the CFPB “want[s] to know what you are seeing and how that informs what we should be doing – where our supervision and enforcement teams should focus their attention, and what problems our policymakers should undertake to fix.” Cordray suggested that similar agreements with other municipalities may be forthcoming, noting that “[c]ollaborations like this one are at the heart of our efforts to improve how consumer financial markets work for people…. By working together, we can succeed in educating, empowering, and protecting our citizens.”

In his prepared remarks, Mayor Emanuel announced additional actions that the City is taking:

• On December 12, 2012, the City Council will introduce new proposed ordinances (a) to regulate and license debt collectors and to enforce compliance with fair debt collection laws and (b) to give its Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection enhanced supervision and enforcement powers against businesses for alleged violations of federal and state consumer financial protection laws.
• The City will collect information on “predatory and deceptive acts associated with home repair loans, payday loans, small dollar loans, reverse mortgage products, and mortgage origination and servicing.”
• The City plans to tighten zoning regulations to “limit the proliferation” of payday lenders, auto-title lenders, and “other predatory financial services.”