WASHINGTON-In her debut speech to credit unions, new advisor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Elizabeth Warren said the CU industry can be a strong ally for consumers.
Warren, widely credited with developing the idea for the new independent agency, addressed NAFCU's Congressional Caucus just after Obama appointed her as special advisor the Treasury as it develops the new CFPB. Warren said part of her job will be to create a set of rules for CUs and other small lenders to compete against big banks. "The job of regulation is not only to level the playing field between consumers and the lender, it's often to level the playing field among the lenders so that everybody is competing on a straight-up basis."
Calling herself a "long-time member" of a CU, Warren said she viewed the industry as an ally in the fight to protect consumers. "I think that consumers and credit unions should be on the same side of the line," Warren said. "If at the end of the day we don't have a robust-and this is very important-a diverse banking system that has different kinds of providers that come from a lot of different perspectives, offer different products, then we will have failed."
