§5581 Transfer of Consumer Financial Protection Functions

Summary

All consumer financial protection powers held by certain federal agencies move to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on the designated transfer date. "Consumer financial protection functions" means rulemaking, orders, guidance, and the examination authority described in section 5515(c)(1). "Transferor agencies" are the Board of Governors (and Federal Reserve banks as needed), the FDIC, the FTC, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the heads of those agencies. The Bureau gets the same powers and duties those agencies had the day before the transfer. HUD’s housing-related duties under certain mortgage and land laws move to the Bureau. The FTC transfers its authority under listed consumer laws to make rules, issue guidelines, or do required studies or reports, but its employees do not have to move. The Bureau may enforce FTC rules against covered persons for consumer financial products as if those were its own rules. The FTC keeps its other powers under the FTC Act and, when appropriate, may enforce Bureau rules against parties under FTC jurisdiction. The agencies must coordinate rulemaking to avoid overlap or conflict, and courts will give the same legal weight to each agency’s interpretations as before. Prudential regulators keep limited examination and enforcement powers as backup or exclusive authorities for the firms named in sections 5515(a) and 5516(a), subject to the limits in sections 5515(c) and 5516(b)–(c), and may enforce through statutes like the Federal Credit Union Act (12 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.), section 1818, or the Bank Service Company Act (12 U.S.C. 1861 et seq.). Subsections (b) and (c) take effect on the designated transfer date.