The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the Bureau) announced today the eighth in a series of at least twelve broad Requests for Information (RFIs) seeking public comment on a range of Bureau activities and practices. Today’s RFI, on rulemaking by the Bureau, seeks comments and information on whether the Bureau should:

• amend any rules that the Bureau has issued since its creation; or
• issue new rules under its statutory rulemaking authorities.

The RFI is focused on the substance of Bureau rules, and not the Bureau’s rulemaking process — which is the subject of a separate RFI. Moreover, it is limited to rules adopted, or to be adopted, by the Bureau since its creation in 2011. Another RFI, to be issued in the coming weeks, will seek comment on rules issued by other agencies and inherited by the Bureau in 2011, when the Bureau assumed responsibility for the enforcement of enumerated consumer laws previously administered by other Federal banking agencies.

The Bureau has previously described its series of RFIs as a “call for evidence to ensure the Bureau is fulfilling its proper and appropriate functions to best protect consumers.” In this RFI, the Bureau expresses particular interest in receiving comments on:

• the tailoring of regulations to particular types of institutions or institutions of particular sizes;
• unintended regulatory consequences, including regulatory overlap and inconsistency; and
• updates to regulations to allow for technological innovation and to protect against identity theft and cybercrime.

The Bureau is also seeking comments on how its regulations can be better aligned to the statutory purposes and objectives of Federal consumer financial laws and stated Bureau policies, and also on pilots, field tests, demonstrations or other activities that the Bureau could launch to test (and quantify the costs and benefits of) potential revisions to its regulations.

The comment period for the RFI will run for 90 days from the date of its publication in the Federal Register. The RFI is expected to be published on March 19, which would make the deadline for comments June 17, 2018.

Prior Bureau RFIs are available here; our coverage of the Bureau’s RFI on external engagements (such as field hearings and town halls) is here; a Covington-authored article on the Bureau’s RFI related to its Civil Investigative Demand process is here; and a Covington-authored article on the Bureau’s RFI related to its enforcement processes is here.