This week, Rohit Chopra was booted from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and replaced by acting CFPB Director, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
The CFPB has been a controversial bureaucracy from its inception, and some supporters of Fintech innovation have chafed at the agency’s actions. Some view the departure of Chopra as good news for innovative financial firms.
Congressman Bryan Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin who is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, issued the following statement on Chopra’s exit.
“Under former Director Chopra’s tenure, the CFPB routinely worked to undermine innovation and impose regulation harming consumers and businesses alike. Acting Director Bessent’s decision to pause all new regulatory action and promote consistency within the new administration is an important first step to rein in the misguided bureaucracy at the CFPB. I look forward to working alongside President Trump and Secretary Bessent to ensure our regulatory agencies work with, not against, American families and small businesses.”
Steil was not alone in lauding Chopra’s departure.
WSJ.com wrote a blistering OpEd, calling Chopra’s firing a “good economic deed.”
“The CFPB does nothing that can’t be done by other federal regulators, and it would thus seem to be a ripe target for Elon Musk’s government efficiency shop. Ms. Warren [Senator Elizabeth Warren] created the agency to be insulated from Congressional oversight through the power of the purse, and its main contribution to the nation’s well-being has been, well, we can’t think of one. This is a good moment to close the joint down.”
Senator Warren is well-known for being anti-innovation and anti-financial services in general. Sitting on the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Warren has long terrorized bankers and other witnesses with attacks based on infractions, either real or imagined.
The authors of the OpEd voice an opinion held by many others that the CFPB should be shuttered and consolidated with another federal agency. As there are a dozen or so federal agencies that touch financial services, one of the most critical industries in the country, combining the CFPB with another entity makes a lot of sense. Maybe when DOGE gets a breather from the scrutiny of USAID, it can take a look at the CFPB.
