Happy Birthday Mr. Super Regulator

I've been reading a lot of news lately about the fact that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has just turned 1 year old and the Dodd-Frank law that created it has turned 2. The news I'm reading runs the gamut from glowing reviews written by well-wishers to hand wringers in the financial services industry that worry about what the new agency will do when it stops crawling and learns to walk.

Of course, it's not quite clear yet whether the new Bureau will even live that long. According to one trade press account, the political battle over the new financial services super regulator is just starting to heat up. According to the MReport:

"What is clear, some say, is that the agency and reform law will face an existential threat from Republicans that vow to defund and repeal financial reform from the past two years, just as most Democrats will continue to call for stronger regulation in the wake of Wall Street blunders."

I suspect that taking down something that took a year to conceive properly and then another year to build up to it's first action will be significantly harder to tear down than most believe.

In the meantime, our industry had better learn to deal with borrowers as well as the CFPB does or we'll suffer the consequences when it comes time for consumer to decide who their friends are. In our mind, that's just public relations, but talking the talk without walking the walk is not likely to be a good solution.

How are you preparing to be a better friend to your prospective borrowers than the CFPB is?