The House Financial Services Committee will hold hearings this week on topics including community development financing, regulation of money-services businesses and proposed reforms of the Federal Housing Administration.
A hearing today will focus on challenges facing community development financial institutions in serving lower-income communities. The witnesses will include Michael Barr, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial institutions, and Donna Gambrell, the director of the Treasury's CDFI Fund.
On Wednesday the financial institutions subcommittee will hear testimony on a bill authored by Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the full committee's ranking Republican, and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., the subcommittee chairman, to establish an Office of Money Services Business Compliance within the Treasury. The office would be led by a presidentially appointed director who would work in consultation with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and the comptroller of the currency.
The subcommittee on housing economic opportunity will meet Thursday to discuss the administration's proposal for reforming the FHA. Under the proposal, the secretary of housing and urban development would have greater flexibility to collect annual FHA premiums.
