Inside these posts: Consumer Protection Agency

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Czar amazed by threats to nascent consumer agency

Elizabeth Warren, the point person creating an agency to protect consumers of financial products, said she was surprised there are  efforts afoot in Congress to kill or disable the agency before it’s born.

Warren, in Chicago for a speech at Northwestern University, told the Tribune in an interview Thursday that it’s crucial the agency is created and that its funding remain independent from the political process. She also held an olive branch to community banks and credit unions wary of more regulation. Get the full story »

Elizabeth Warren confident after investor meetings

White House adviser Elizabeth Warren said her meetings with investors and bank executives are going well, helping to give the financial industry a better sense of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s direction and priorities.

“I have really been on the road,” Warren told CNBC, noting that she’s been traveling the country meeting with community bankers, consumer advocates, chief executives of the largest financial firms and buy-side investors. Warren said she has discussed the agency’s approach to regulation and outlined its likely first steps “to make it really clear where we’re headed.” Get the full story »

Consumer czar: Financial industry still aims to block

The financial industry continues trying to thwart the Obama administration’s effort to set up an effective consumer protection agency, though one is needed now more than ever, new consumer czar Elizabeth Warren charged on Thursday.

“We fought hard to get here, and those who tried to block the agency’s creation have already said that they will be back,” Warren said in remarks prepared for delivery at the University of California in Berkeley,

“Every day, they spend money to find a way to cut back the agency’s power — even before its work has begun,” she added. A text of her remarks was issued in advance in Washington. Get the full story »

Candidate for consumer post meets with Obama

Elizabeth Warren, a popular but polarizing consumer advocate, met with President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, adding to speculation she could be named to head a new consumer protection agency.

Fed sets mortgage disclosure, compensation rules

The Federal Reserve on Monday published new rules aimed at protecting consumers from abusive mortgage practices, including clearer cost disclosures and a ban on payments to mortgage brokers for steering borrowers into loans with higher interest rates.

The Fed said it would ban payments from lenders to brokers based on interest rates paid by borrowers or other loan terms. The final rule, which takes effect on April 1, 2011, will end the so-called “yield spread premium” payments blamed for pushing millions of borrowers into unaffordable loans. Get the full story »

FDIC deputy: Borrowers need protection

FDIC Deputy Director Robert W. Mooney tells a conference of banking risk managers that U.S. consumers need federal protection from a  financial services industry that has exposed them to inappropriate mortgages,  credit cards and other practices.