CFPB's Twohig Cancels on Bank Lawyer Conference

Park City, Utah — Consumer bank lawyers gathered here on Tuesday to glean insight about the newly-empowered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — but as it turned out, they had to do so without their regulatory guest of honor.

Peggy Twohig, the CFPB's associate director for nonbank supervision, canceled her appearance at a panel discussion about the agency "at the last minute," the panel's organizers announced on Tuesday at the beginning of the session.

Twohig was supposed to speak on a panel titled "CFPB: The New Regulator on the Beat," at the American Bar Association's winter meeting of consumer financial services lawyers.

The panel's organizers did not give an explanation for Twohig's cancelation. Jennifer Howard, a spokeswoman for the CFPB, told American Banker in an email, "Peggy regrets missing this important event, but had to focus on getting our nonbank supervision program up and running — a key priority now that we have a director."

Twohig certainly has her hands full at work. Just last week, her team was finally able to begin the enormous task of overseeing the regulation of the nonbank financial sector, after President Barack Obama appointed Richard Cordray to run the CFPB.

She told American Banker in an interview last week that her team had started reaching out to state officials, to help them begin to determine which companies pose the most risk, and which should be targeted for examination first in the mortgage, payday and student loan markets.

Twohig began working for Treasury in March 2009 and helped design the original proposal for the bureau. She had been an assistant director for financial practices at the Federal Trade Commission.