CFPB: Declaration of Dependence

In early February, the Federal Reserve delivered its most significant punishment of a major bank in a generation, sanctioning Wells Fargo for its pattern of customer exploitation.

A few blocks away, meanwhile, another of the giant bank’s regulators, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has recently displayed a different attitude: It has been softening on scandal-inundated Wells Fargo. After an edict about data handling from Mick Mulvaney, the man Donald Trump installed as acting head of the agency late last year, the bureau’s enforcement lawyers suddenly found their hands tied, according to three CFPB staffers. The attorneys weren’t permitted to upload information the bank supplied about its auto insurance business, one of the areas in which Wells Fargo has been accused of malfeasance.

Another probe of bad behavior — this one involving Wells Fargo’s treatment of its checking customers — has bogged down, ProPublica has learned. And a third investigation of the bank (for mortgage abuses) that was about to yield tens of millions of dollars in fines, according to Reuters, now languishes unresolved. Staffers fear they will be ordered to reduce the penalty that Richard Cordray, the previous head of the agency, approved before he left, according to people familiar with the probe.

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