Regulation

Mortgage securitization blew up the home price bubble and detonated the financial crisis. How?

Despite new threats of legal challenges or hopes for structural changes, this agency cannot be wished away. But banks can still influence the size and nature of the role the CFPB will play.

Richard Cordray, the bureau's first director, said Thursday that the CFPB will begin exercising its new authority to regulate nonbanks starting today, despite doubts from the industry about its authority.

John Delaney, the executive chairman of CapitalSource in Bethesda, Md., is taking a leave of absence from the commercial finance company he founded to run for a seat in Congress.

President Obama on Dec. 4 bypassed intransigent Republican senators and named former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as a recess appointee to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing the new agency to begin its work in earnest.

Although doing so carries legal risks for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Barack Obama's decision to recess appoint Richard Cordray to head the new agency was all about politics.

WASHINGTON — While all eyes were on the recess appointment of its first director Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau quietly released guidance that directs supervised banks to turn over any and all information it requests.

When President Obama installed Richard Cordray as director of the CFPB through a recess appointment Wednesday, he set the stage for a legal showdown over the bureau's authority that could take years to resolve.

Presidential elections historically turn on the condition of the economy, and economic recovery has historically relied on a housing market recovery.

Although doing so carries legal risks for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Barack Obama's decision to recess appoint Richard Cordray to head the new agency was all about politics.