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23 » VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM A week after appearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray traveled back up the hill again to review the bureau's semi-annual report and take questions from the House Financial Services Committee. At the hearing, committee members asked Cordray to address a number of issues surround- ing the embattled agency, including accountabil- ity concerns and allegations of discrimination. e director went on the defensive from the start, with committee chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) opening the hearing with remarks on what he called "disturbing develop- ments" within the bureau. "Properly designed, the CFPB is capable of great good on behalf of consumers," Hensarling said. "It is also capable of great harm." Hensarling then questioned Cordray about the cost of renovating its headquarters, which is now at an estimated $185 million. e new build- ing plans include a four-story glass staircase, granite fountains, sunken gardens, and more. While critics, including Senate Bank- ing Committee member Tom Coburn (R- Oklahoma) have described the design plans as "opulent," Cordray dismissed the language used as overblown, insisting that "every halfway- functioning shopping mall in America" has the same features. After some back-and-forth debate—in which Hensarling asserted again that CFPB is "essentially unaccountable to the people"—Cor- dray heatedly told the congressman to check out the building for himself: "Come see the build- ing. It's a dump. You want to come see it?" Also of interest to the group of lawmakers was CFPB's plan to establish a National Mort- gage Database in partnership with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). e bureau's efforts to gather information to build that database prompted comparisons to the National Security Agency. Cordray debunked the comparison, clarify- ing that the agency's information comes as an "off-the-shelf " product purchased from credit reporting agencies and scrubbed of certain information, including Social Security numbers, addresses, and any other personally-identifiable facts, but that answer didn't satisfy Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama). "You may intend to scrub this information, but someone else, once they see it, may not," the congressman said. "e American people are rightly concerned about the protection of their personally-identifiable information." "I'm part of the American people," Cordray countered. "I'm very concerned about it, too." At last, hours before a separate whistleblower hearing on alleged discrimination and retalia- tion within the bureau, the director responded to claims of his own involvement, including an allegation that he told senior enforcement at- torneys to "back down" from a complaint about hostility in the agency's work environment. While Cordray didn't deny the phone call in which the alleged incident took place, he said he was trying to push for a resolution that would allow all parties to move forward. "I simply wanted to have Ms. Martin reach a productive resolution of her complaint, which we did do so within a matter of a couple of weeks," he said. "at later was reopened, and now we've resolved it again. I want her to have a good position at the bureau where she can do good work for consumers." COMPLAINT CENTRAL Have a complaint? CFPB wants to hear about it. Since its formation in 2011, the bureau has received hundreds of thousands of complaints from consumers related to multiple areas of the financial services industry. MORTGAGE COMPLAINTS BY MORTGAGE TYPE (34% OF ALL COMPLAINTS) COMPLAINTS ABOUT DEBT COLLECTION (20% OF ALL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED) COMPLAINTS ABOUT CREDIT REPORTING (12% OF ALL COMPLAINTS) Source: CFPB's "Consumer Response: A Snapshot of Complaints Received" 45% Other 34% Continued attempts to collect debt not owed 21% Communication tactics 74% Incorrect information on credit report 10% Credit reporting company's investigation 9% Unable to obtain report or score 4% Credit monitoring or identity protection 3% Improper use of credit report 14% Taking or threatening an illegal action 13% Disclosure verification of debt 9% False statements or representation 8% Improper contact or sharing info 1% Other 28% Conventional Fixed 10% Conventional Adjustable (ARM) 8% FHA 2% VA 1% Reverse 1% Second 4% Home equity loan or line of credit Percentage of refinances making up Fannie Mae's single-family conventional business volume in Q1. Source: Fannie Mae STAT INSIGHT 55%

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