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Readers react to Mick Mulvaney’s proposal to restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, opine on Community Reinvestment Act reform ideas, weigh in on emojis in digital banking and more.
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On how people are using emojis in digital chats with friends, family, and even bank systems:

“Emojis give context to content. They connect words in a personal way - between the sender & receiver. It humanizes text. Less pomp, more on circumstance w/feeling. It is 21st c language & wordplay, with no cursive ;)” (via Twitter)

Related: When it comes to emojis, banks just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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On companies disclosing the median pay of their employees:

“Industry and company medians are a poor indicator of what companies are paying for specific functions.”

Related: Is low pay hurting banks in the battle for tech talent?
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On eliminating tax lien data from credit reporting:

“The starting line of a very bad path for credit reports. What will be excluded next?”

Related: Will dropping tax lien data from credit reporting lead to bad loans?
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An attendee holds an "Echo Dot" device during the U.K. launch event for the Amazon.com Inc. Echo voice-controlled home assistant speaker in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. The Seattle-based company today announced that its Echo product line will be available in the U.K. and Germany starting in the fall, the first time the gadget will be available outside the U.S. Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

On why Credit Karma bought a chatbot:

“Interactive Q&A is great for complex configurations that don’t have too many options. Also, one can readily see @creditkarma applying learning for voice engagement”

Related: Credit Karma bets big on chatbots as others balk
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Weighing in on the debate on what a financial services chatbot is good for:

“Chatbots are not efficient for communicating information with multiple, complex elements, like borrowing options, or where the consumer might not have information immediately at hand, like a loan application.”

Related: Credit Karma bets big on chatbots as others balk
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The US Treasury Department has appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court a pair of lawsuits with Ohio and Kentucky that have blocked the department from enforcing an ARPA provision that restricts the states from using the funds to offset tax cuts.

On a Treasury report’s recommendations to reform the Community Reinvestment Act:

“And add credit unions over $1 billion in assets to the list. If they are going to continue to receive their free ride federal tax subsidy, its time to make them prove up that they are living up to their mission and deserve the subsidy.”

Related: 5 takeaways from Treasury’s call to action on CRA
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On Mick Mulvaney, acting head of the CFPB, calling for reforms that would effectively neuter the bureau:

“If the other agencies didn't do their jobs, why focus on making the CFPB run better, and not the other agencies? We don't need both sets of federal regulators. Pick one - banking regulators, or CFPB - that can do it well, with proper checks and balances, while following the rule of law, and do away with the other. I think it makes more sense to get rid of the controversial, politicized, enormously expensive CFPB, and focus on improving the banking regulators."

Related: Mulvaney’s CFPB plan is dangerous
Mick Mulvaney, director of OMB and acting CFPB director
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), listens during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Jan. 19, 2018. Federal government funding runs out at midnight Friday. Legislation to extend the deadline passed the House on Thursday and is set for a showdown in the Senate Friday, in which Democrats are poised to block the bill. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

On the dangers if Congress approved Mulvaney’s most recent proposal to restructure the agency:

“This piece makes a very important point: the CFPB has been checked when it has gone too far, so why all the hand-wringing about ‘tyranny’ as if the Founding Fathers fought a revolution to ensure our right to payday loans, discriminatory auto loan markups, and arbitration.”

Related: Mulvaney’s CFPB plan is dangerous
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On the reputational challenges facing the credit bureaus:

"It is disturbing but true that there is very little consumer privacy left. Being tracked by a company I have a business relationship with is one thing, however selling my data without my knowledge (or without compensation) to an unrelated party is another matter. But this is nothing new Microstrategy has been mining data for 29 years."

Related: Credit bureaus aren’t going anywhere. For now
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