Mulvaney Unveils New CFPB Five-Year Strategic Plan

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has released a five-year Strategic Plan that offers a very different approach to regulatory oversight than the draft version initially released in October 2017.

 

In his introduction to the Strategic Plan, CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney sought to establish a more holistic and less confrontational operating plan for the agency than the one advocated by former Director Richard Cordray, who resigned last November in order to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio.

 

“In reviewing the draft Strategic Plan released by the Bureau in October 2017, it became clear to me that the Bureau needed a more coherent strategic direction,” wrote Mulvaney. “If there is one way to summarize the strategic changes occurring at the Bureau, it is this: We have committed to fulfill the Bureau’s statutory responsibilities, but go no further. Indeed, this should be an ironclad promise for any federal agency; pushing the envelope in pursuit of other objectives ignores the will of the American people, as established in law by their representatives in Congress and the White House. Pushing the envelope also risks trampling upon the liberties of our citizens, or interfering with the sovereignty or autonomy of the states or Indian tribes. I have resolved that this will not happen at the Bureau.”

 

The Strategic Plan cited three main goals for the next five years: ensuring consumers have access to financial products and services, implementing and enforcing the law “consistently” while ensuring markets are “fair, transparent and competitive,” and fostering “operational excellence through efficient and effective processes, governances, and security of resources and information.”

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