DAILY FINANCE: Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced in congressional testimony Wednesday that his agency plans to spend $448 million next year, a 26% increase from its 2012 budget of $356 million. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that the CFPB has proposed a draft rule which would allow it to supervise large debt collectors and credit reporting companies, two sectors of the financial industry that have heretofore been mostly ignored by the federal government…
In a statement emailed to media outlets, Cordray explained, “Our proposed rule would mean that those debt collectors and credit reporting agencies that qualify as larger participants are subject to the same supervision process that we apply to the banks.”
Supervision in this context entails examining company records for evidence of violations of laws such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or the Fair Credit Reporting Act. According to Bloomberg, companies that would fall under the CFPB’s purview include credit bureaus Experian (EXPN), Equifax (EFX) and TransUnion, as well as debt collectors Asset Acceptance Capital (AACC), Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRAA) and Encore Capital Group (ECPG). … (more)
