Consumer-Finance Regulation Under the New Paradigm
My interview late last week with NPR’s Marketplace on the CFPB’s assault on credit-card fees sparked considerable comment mostly about how much people hate their credit-card fees. What’s at stake here, though, is not one fee – it’s the impact of a paradigm shift in the construct of U.S. consumer-finance regulation. If Rohit Chopra has his way – and he may well – consumer financial-protection standards will be transformed from reliance almost exclusively on disclosures into a federal construct of price-setting and product prohibitions. Political ideology may dictate a preference between these paradigms, but a choice that enhances effective consumer protection isn’t that simple – disclosures have largely failed consumers, but nationalized consumer finance could crush consumer banks.