Federal Newswire has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) seeking a list of all organizations that have received payments from the bureau’s “Civil Penalty Fund” since the bureau’s formation in 2011.
The CFPB was established in 2011 following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It operates as an agency of the United States government with the primary mission to enforce federal consumer financial laws and protect consumers in the financial sector.
The bureau's jurisdiction encompasses banks, credit unions, securities firms, payday lenders, mortgage-servicing operations, foreclosure relief services, debt collectors, and other financial companies operating in the United States. The bureau spent $2.75 billion in FY 2023, according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO).
The CFPB, through its Civil Penalty Fund, collects penalties levied as a result of the bureau’s enforcement actions against companies. The fund is supposed to be used to compensate alleged victims of consumer finance violations. The CFPB, however, can allocate money from the Civil Penalty Fund to non-profits and other organizations that the bureau says will further consumer education and financial literacy, if the bureau determines that it cannot locate actual victims of the alleged penalties are too small to allocate.
The GAO issued a report in 2014 that found a need to “improve the transparency of CFPB's Civil Penalty Fund activities” as they related to “determining the amount of funding, if any, allocated to consumer education and financial literacy programs.”
The Civil Penalty Fund collected $1.9 billion in FY2023, which is more than the $1.49 billion collected from FY2012 through FY2022, according to the bureau’s latest financial report.
That financial report provides only the names of companies targeted by bureau enforcement actions and total amounts collected and allocated by the Civil Penalty Fund. It does not list the specific groups who received payments from the fund for “consumer education and financial literacy," which is why Federal Newswire has submitted the FOIA request for this information.
Federal Newswire's FOIA request was submitted on Feb. 16, 2024 to Paul Levitan, the acting FOIA Manager for the CFPB.
