Coordination of Responsibilities Among the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Prudential Regulators—Limited Scope Review

During a March 20, 2013, hearing held by the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit of the House Committee on Financial Services, a concern was raised regarding potential regulatory overlap between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In subsequent conversations, the FDIC Office of Inspector General (OIG) notified the Subcommittee that it planned to coordinate with the OIGs of the other prudential regulators¹ to assess whether there are overlaps in how the CFPB and prudential regulators are carrying out their regulatory responsibilities. As such, the FDIC OIG and OIGs for the Board and the CFPB, Department of the Treasury, and NCUA conducted a joint review.

The objective of our review was to assess the extent to which the CFPB and prudential regulators were coordinating their supervisory activities and avoiding duplication of regulatory oversight responsibilities.

At the time of our review, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had completed, ongoing, and planned assignments that evaluated agency coordination efforts, among other matters.² Accordingly, we tailored our review to complement, but not duplicate, GAO's work. In this regard, our field work largely consisted of interviews and document review. In March 2014, the Board-CFPB OIG issued a report on its evaluation of the CFPB's supervisory program, which addressed coordination activities between the CFPB and prudential regulators, among other matters. This report is discussed later in this memorandum.

• 1. The prudential regulators are the FDIC, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). Return to text
• 2. Attachment 2 provides an overview of GAO’s work. Return to text