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By Douglas Gillison, Nupur Anand, Pete Schroeder and Isla Binnie
(Reuters) – At a meeting of JPMorgan Townhall on Wednesday, CEO Jamie Dimon was asked if the Trump administration’s decision suddenly stops working at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and to question his existence was good news for industry.
Dimon told his employees that it was difficult for the bank when “politicians turn two directions” and that he preferred coherent policies. The CFPB had good rules for consumer protection, especially with regard to areas such as wage lenders, he said, according to a meeting of the meeting that Reuters examined, which has not previously been reported . However, he did not cry the dismantling of the agency.
“The only one best I would say on the CFPB is that there are rules for the protection of consumers who are good,” said Dimon. He added that the agency had “massively exceeded their authority” and used an explanive to describe the former director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra, a democrat who carried out an aggressive application campaign against the industry. JPMorgan was one of the three banks that the CFPB continued in December, alleging “generalized” fraud on the Zelle payment service.
JPMorgan refused to comment. A spokesperson for Chopra refused to comment.
Created in 2010 to protect consumers after Lax mortgage rules and other poor quality practices have led to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB was insulting by conservatives and industry, which has it Accused of excessive and too zealous application measures.
Despite this, his sudden hard during a weekend by the Trump administration, including by the Ministry of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) led by Elon Musk, causes upheavals among those he regulates, according to Half of a dozen people who advise or work at Banks or financial technology companies regulated by the CFPB.
The sudden judgment of work has a gang of consequences: it leaves a large part of the funding of consumers, from mortgage companies to payment applications, not supervised and removes a place where consumers could file complaints concerning their providers. It also leaves many investigations suspended in balance, according to industry advisers as well as several members of the current and former CFPB staff.
In the industry, which had a burst of conversations to assess the impact of sterilization of the CFPB, cares that a patchwork of state regulators could take problems that the CFPB had directed, which leaves them potentially with Even more expensive requirements, the initiates of the so -called industry.
Some leaders have also raised concerns during industry calls concerning DOGE access to their owner data that CFPB collects and asked for whom the Musk team was responsible, given the billionaire entrepreneur plans for His own competing payment company, said a public director of a fintech company.
Musk and President Donald Trump both declared that the role of the entrepreneur at Doge has no conflict of interest.
The CFPB contains large amounts of data, including confidential supervision reports, exam results, investigation files and compliance files that include personal information for customers, their accounts, transactions stories and transactions and transactions and transactions stories Product preferences.
Industry leaders said they were worried about the apparent absence of a plan in place.
“It is something that banks have always been concerned – the regulation of patchworks as opposed, namely who you are dealing with,” said James Ballentine, a former lobbyist of the American Bankers Association sales group who now directs his own company advice. “It is easy to say:” Get rid of something “, but there must be a plan in place.”
The spokesperson for the White House, CFPB and Doge have not responded to requests for comments. Musk did not respond to a request for comments.
Regulatory vacuum
The question of whether the agency continues to exist in one form or another and what would be its function. The White House appointed Jonathan McKernan, a former member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as full -time director of the CFPB, leading certain analysts to suspect that the administration does not want to eradicate it completely. McKernan did not respond to a request for comments.
The mixed feelings of relief and concern of the industry underline how the radical remake by the Trump administration of the federal government is likely to lead to consequences which are not fully understood.
On Tuesday, the president of the federal reserve, Jerome Powell, told Congress that no other federal regulator applies several laws on consumer finance in his absence. Some experts have declared that the regulatory vacuum could leave the Americans daily vulnerable to predatory practices, in particular from the slightly regulated parties of the financial industry and erode confidence as a whole.
“The bank concerns trust, and it is an industry that unavailable regulatory uncertainty,” said Matthew Biben, who co-directs the law firm King & Spalding Global Financial Services Group. “So, the longer term question is:” What impact will the new management have on consumer confidence and regulatory certainty for market players? ” »»
Closed books, laptops left behind
While the writing was on the CFPB wall, the speed of events left industry and the members of amazed staff.
On February 7, on Friday evening, Trump appointed Russell Vought as an acting director of the CFPB. Vought, who is also the director of Trump budget, was one of the architects of the 2025 project, a conservative manifesto published by the Heritage Foundation which called for the abolition of the CFPB.
A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget, which Vought, did not respond to a request for comments.
Vought quickly ordered a temporary closure of the agency. One of the staff of the CFPB staff said they had so little warning that many employees had left their laptops and personal effects, such as family photos, works of art for children and Pot plants, on their desk.
Another staff member said hundreds of banking examiners who were to examine banks’ books and other financial companies had to change travel plans. Lawyers in application have disabled their computers halfway to the documentary exams on surveys, said this person.
This week, those who are difficult or confronted with the action of the CFPB were trying to determine if they should continue to continue or defend against these cases. Affairs are pending against companies, including Capital One, who has been accused of deceiving customers in large -scale accounts; Meta, who said she was surveyed on advertising financial products; And Experian, who faces an alleged trial that he has misunderstood the complaints.
Meta refused to comment. Experian and Capital One did not respond to requests for comments.
“There are many organizations that are currently the subject of an investigation which wonders what it means … And if potentially, the surveys will be closed,” said Anastasia Stull, partner of the Stinson law firm , which represents financial customers, some of which are involved in the prosecution with the CFPB.
(Report by Douglas Gillison, Pete Schroeder, Nupur Anand, Hannah Lang and Isla Binnie; additional report by Lananh Nguyen and Tatiana Bautzer; writing by Megan Davies; edition by Paritosh Bansal and Anna Driver)
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