WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump Administration has announced its plan to nominate Kathy Kraninger, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official, to be the next Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Prior to her role at OMB, Kraninger's experience in the federal government has been focused on homeland security issues, having worked at the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Throughout her government career, Kraninger has had limited to no experience in consumer protection. Last November, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney was unlawfully appointed "Acting Director" of the CFPB.
Center for Responsible Lending Senior Legislative Counsel Yana Miles released the following statement:
This is a scheme to keep Mick Mulvaney at the helm of the CFPB so he can continue working on behalf of the payday lenders. Mulvaney has already publicly stated his intention to unlawfully stay at the consumer bureau until the end of the year or longer. If the Administration was serious about protecting consumers, the President would have nominated someone qualified last January instead of someone unqualified in June--just days before the CFPB nomination deadline.
Every day, working families continue to experience financial abuses because they don't have a real consumer watchdog looking after them. Debt collectors continue to hound borrowers for debts they don’t owe, the high-costs of overdraft fees on bank accounts are pervasive, and high-cost lenders are still trapping borrowers in triple digit interest rate loans. All of these practices fall harder on borrowers of color, who are repeatedly targeted by the predatory lending industry.
Mulvaney champions the interests of payday lenders, not consumers--he's dropped court cases against abusive predatory lenders, redefined the mission of the CFPB, dismissed investigations against bad financial practices, and he's pushing to eliminate the payday lending rule, which took five years to produce.
The Senate should immediately hold confirmation hearings and reject this inexperienced candidate and demand that the President nominate someone qualified who has a history of making consumer protection a top priority.
For more information or to arrange an interview with a CRL spokesperson, please contact Matthew Kravitz at matthew.kravitz@responsiblelending.org or Ricardo Quinto at ricardo.quinto@responsiblelending.org.