Article

CFPB official will address industry at ATM conference

Providers are edgy about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here's why things may not be so bad for them after all.

February 23, 2012 by Suzanne Cluckey — Owner, Suzanne Cluckey Communications

Providers all across the payments industry have been feeling a little edgy about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It's understandable.

This new government agency would seem to add one more layer of density to the already opaque workings of Washington. Plus, its provenance was the Dodd-Frank Act, whose Durbin Amendment had knocked the industry for a loop already. Could anything in that legislation be good for the industry?

According to CFPB assistant director Marla Blow, the answer could be yes.

Blow, who heads up the CFPB's card and payment markets group, explained that the bureau's job was to bring clarity to the vague and to figure out which rules and regulations inherited from seven other agencies were overlapping, duplicative, outdated and maybe a little dumb, and then to recommend fixes for them. In short, to streamline regulatory processes so they actually assist interaction between consumers and companies instead of impeding it.

It's a monumental job, and one that's just getting underway. In a session at the ATMIA conference in San Antonia next week, Blow will put a human face on the CFPB Card and Payment Markets Group as she talks to attendees about the task her group has been charged with and explains what it could mean to them.

Blow gave ATMmarketplace a short preview of her session in a telephone interview.

Q: Tell me about your background, what you did before coming to the Consumer Financial Protection  Bureau.

A: I was at Capital One for the last eight years, where I worked in the credit card business. I worked in the business proper, so I wasn't in government relations or compliance. I was in card customer management, looking at how Capital One manages its portfolio of customers; I was in finance kind of looking at the bottom line and the performance of the business; and I was in risk management looking at losses on Capital One's card portfolio. Over the course of those roles I got to look at the credit card business from each of those perspectives and develop an in-depth understanding of how credit cards work, how credit card companies work and kind of understand the nuts and bolts of that business.

One of the things I always mention when I introduce myself — sort of in jest, but I also think it's an important factor — is that I'm not a lawyer. So often all of what's happening in legislation and in writing rules is all lawyers talking to each other. I am certainly surrounded by lawyers but I myself am not a lawyer. And I think that's important; it makes for a different perspective and it makes me focused on — in some ways, I think — different things.

Q: What is your role now at the CFPB?

A: I cover credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, and I also cover emerging payment technologies like mobile payments and peer-to-peer money transfers and those kinds of transaction vehicles.

The idea is that when a rule is being written or proposed, or the details are being contemplated, there is someone at the table who actually has some experience in the industry and can anticipate, "If you do the following it the following kind of chilling effect on this market," or in some way be able to inform the idea that the rule-writers actually have on the table.

Q: So you might be able to anticipate the unintended consequences of a rule, which they might not see.

A: That's right, and then be able to parse through the feedback that we're getting because we get a lot of public comment. We've put all of our rules up for public comment and all of those comments have to be evaluated and reacted to. We have to understand how much of those comments are real and link to specific issues and how much is "less regulation is always better than more," and is purely interested in having less regulation.

Q: How do you see yourself interacting with the ATM industry?

A: That's an open issue and one I'm interested in getting feedback on from all participants in the marketplace. So one of the things I do is engage with industry participants, consumer advocates, trade associations, industry analysts — a whole variety of voices — and I take all of that perspective in. There are a couple of places where [all groups] can actually work in relative harmony.

We believe that consumers having access to their funds is an important dimension of being effective for users of financial marketplace. And ATMs are a key part of that. Obviously, I recognize that there are a lot of challenges with the use of cash on the decline, etcetera. But the availability of an ATM in your neighborhood, in your local grocery store or corner store or whatever the case may be, we think is important. It's an important part of being able to access your funds in a safe way. And I think the ATM industry is the key player in that space. So I think there's an opportunity for us to be seen as partners in that regard.

One of the things that we have specifically hung out as a shingle is an interest in streamlining regulation. There's kind of this notion that law gets written and very little gets un-written. And we have the opportunity to streamline here. Where is there overlap? Where is there unnecessary duplication? What are the regulations that are pain points?

Give us that feedback; put us in a position to do that streamlining effectively in ways that will make your business work more efficiently or be more resilient and long-lived, because as I said, we believe this is an important tool for consumers to continue to access their funds. And so if there is something that is not working in the current regulatory regime — I have some ideas, but I certainly don't have an exhaustive understanding of it — please go to our website, provide us with that feedback, get in touch with me; I'm happy to have that conversation and we'll put that on the docket for evaluation for streamlining.

Q: So they just need to tell you what their concerns are really, just to communicate them.

A: Exactly.

Q: What will you be talking about at the ATMIA Conference?

A: What I intend to do is introduce the bureau, give a bit of a description of the structure, give some idea of how we work, lay out a bit of my agenda, the things I'll be looking at this year. And articulate some of the ways that they can work with us, what we bring to the table, how we can be effective together. So it's relatively high level. I don't have anything that's a specific ask of this group or even anything in particular that I think this group needs to be concerned about or aware of or anything like that. It's much more sort of a "Let's demystify the CFPB a little bit," help them understand at least one personality — mine — in the bureau and start the dialogue.

For more on this subject, visit our regulatory issues research center.

About Suzanne Cluckey

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Suzanne’s editorial career has spanned three decades and encompassed all B2B and B2C communications formats. Her award-winning work has appeared in trade and consumer media in the United States and internationally.

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ATM Industry Association (ATMIA)

The ATM Industry Association, founded in 1997, is a global non-profit trade association with over 10,500 members in 65 countries. The membership base covers the full range of this worldwide industry comprising over 2.2 million installed ATMs.

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