According to Consumer Bankers Association CEO Richard Hunt, financial industry leaders and bankers are saying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) bank examiners are inexperienced, inefficient and take up to nine months to score routine audits, which interferes with lending. As the olympian tells MHProNews, if lenders create a new product, it may be months before they find out if it is acceptable or not, often stifling innovation and lending. One critic says the banks are the training ground for examiners; another says the slow turnaround times “are a warning sign of a system that needs to be corrected.” The CFPB says it reaches out to banks with webinars and guidance manuals used by their field examiners. CFPB spokeswoman Jennifer Howard says, “While we are still working to build out and refine our supervision program, we are pleased with the progress being made and the work being done.” Jonathan Pompan, a banking attorney with the law firm Venable, says, “The CFPB went full-throttle into the field, and in some cases has yet to determine what it would view as problematic. You’ve got folks who are looking at organizations for the first time and making potentially very significant findings” that could cost them millions of dollars.
