Kate Berry

Banks are scouring consumer complaints, bank accounts and loan denials to identify people and companies who they may have cut off from banking services amid a new push by the Trump administration to address allegations of political bias in debanking.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's union is appealing an appellate panel's ruling that allows acting CFPB Director Russell Vought to fire 90% of the bureau's staff.

The embattled regulator has dropped more than half its Biden-era docket, including cases against Apple and U.S. Bank. But insiders at the bureau say that's just the beginning.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received pointed pushback from banks in their public comments on a proposed rule that would slash the number of nonbanks being supervised in four key markets.

Former employees at First Horizon Bank and M&T Bank committed crimes by misappropriating customer data and stealing money from a customer's bank account.

Acting CFPB Director Russ Vought has managed to neuter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a series of actions. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., played a major role by cutting funding in half.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told its staff to expect an upcoming reduction in force because the agency's budget was cut in half by the president's recently passed tax and budget bill.

Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, may have violated federal privacy laws by releasing personal information on mortgages taken out by Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook — actions that served as a basis for President Trump's efforts to remove her from office late last month.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a packed agenda centered on rewriting rules ranging from small business lending to open banking while rescinding several rules finalized under the Biden Administration last year.

The American Fintech Council wants Congress to amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to preempt state privacy laws with both entity-level and data-level exemptions, as well as eliminating restrictions on the secondary use of data.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau initiated a new rulemaking process for its open banking rule with a focus on who can serve as a representative for the consumer and whether banks can charge fees to third parties for consumer data.

Consumer advocates are urging lawmakers to hold hearings on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new open banking rule and whether Congress authorized banks to charge fees for data access.

By a 2-1 vote, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the CFPB's union did not have a reviewable claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. The union is expected to appeal to the full D.C. Circuit.

Bank trade groups have asked a federal court to halt enforcement and extend compliance dates for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's open banking rule that was enacted during the Biden administration. The move comes as the lobbying fight over how the rule will be rewritten intensifies.

New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges that Zelle's parent company, Early Warning Services, failed to adopt basic safeguards to combat fraud. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dismissed a similar lawsuit in March without an explanation.

The bank teller, Khalila Cooper, embezzled $34,000 over a six-month period. She has been banned from the banking industry for her "personal dishonesty," the Fed said.

A headline-grabbing 2022 lawsuit alleging racial bias by home appraisers has been quietly dismissed for lack of evidence. At the same time, the Trump administration is rolling back many of the policy changes involving home appraisals that the Biden administration put in place.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed reducing supervision of all but the largest nonbanks in four key markets: auto financing, consumer credit reporting, debt collection and international money transfers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office last week criticizing a probe into the bureau's funding request for 2025, insisting that acting CFPB Director Russell Vought has "sole discretion'' to determine funding and staffing levels.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. withheld bonuses from former FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg and four senior officials, whose names were redacted from the report, as part of "corrective action" for allegations of misconduct.