Audit of the CFPB's Civil Penalty Fund

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has completed its audit of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) Consumer Financial Civil Penalty Fund (CPF). Overall, our audit determined that the CFPB has been implementing internal controls for the CPF since June 2012. For example, the CFPB developed the CPF rule and internal procedures. During our audit of the CPF, which was conducted from June 2013 to November 2013, we identified an opportunity to improve the controls developed to implement the CPF. Specifically, we determined that CFPB officials can clarify the Procedures for Civil Penalty Fund Administration to reflect the agency's current practices. During our audit, we also observed that information on the CPF was not consolidated in a single location on the CFPB's public website. We relayed this observation to CFPB officials, who took steps to consolidate the CPF information on the CFPB's public website. We could not conduct testing of the controls over making disbursements from the CPF because the CFPB did not start disbursing funds until the middle of November 2013, at the end of our fieldwork. The unallocated¹ CPF balance was approximately $63.5 million as of November 29, 2013. The OIG will continue monitoring CPF activities and will consider conducting an audit that focuses on the controls over the distribution of CPF funds.

• 1. Allocation, for purposes of the CPF, means setting aside money from the CPF for payments to victims or for consumer education and financial literacy programs.  Return to text