Bank activity has long been overseen, such as it is, by federal regulators in the interest of protecting consumers. But banks aren’t the only financial institutions that dig their claws into the consumer’s pound of flesh (either to airlift the grateful consumer to safety, as many institutions claim, or just to profit, as is their lone indisputable mandate).
Either way, the talons of those in the debt collection and credit reporting businesses—as well student and mortgage lenders, check cashing companies, etc.—will now also be observed by the government, as a new level of expanded regulatory power is assumed by the two-year-old Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established under Dodd-Frank. The newly observed industries annually rank near the top in consumer complaints.
