Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, has been tapped by President Trump to be performing director of the Client Monetary Safety Bureau. Bessent is seen right here on the Capitol in Washington final month.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP/AP
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J. Scott Applewhite/AP/AP
Scott Bessent, who was confirmed as Treasury Secretary final week, has been named performing director of the Client Monetary Safety Bureau.
Bessent replaces Rohit Chopra, who was fired on Saturday.
“I look ahead to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to decrease prices for the American individuals and speed up financial development,” Bessent stated in an announcement.
Bessent, a rich hedge fund supervisor, was already anticipated to be a business-friendly selection to steer the Treasury. Now he’ll lead the CFPB, the federal shopper watchdog, no less than for a time.
Chopra had led the bureau since 2021 and steadily took on large banks. Beneath his management, the CFPB issued a lot of laws, together with limiting overdraft charges, capping bank card late charges, and banning medical debt from showing on credit score studies.
The Client Bankers Affiliation, which represents retail banks, cheered the selection of Bessent and instructed he ought to rescind sure guidelines promulgated throughout the Chopra period.
However shopper advocates decried the tapping of Bessent.
“Whereas [Trump] parades a crowd of company lobbyists, billionaire donors, and Wall Avenue insiders like Scott Bessent to steer our nation, we’re trying on the finish of primary protections for American customers,” stated Tony Carrk of Accountable.US, a corruption watchdog group.
The CFPB is an unbiased bureau throughout the Federal Reserve system. It is funded exterior of the congressional appropriations course of, and its funding comes from the Fed. The bureau was created in 2010 by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That laws was handed following the 2008 monetary disaster and it was meant to guard customers from overreach by monetary establishments and assist forestall one other disaster.
