The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said October 14 that it will investigate whether large banks' account and credit decisions violated consumer financial protection laws.
The bureau says the work will include banks identified in an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report and other banks. Its announcement describes the planned investigation; it does not establish that any particular customer is entitled to compensation.
What the bureau says it will examine
The CFPB describes the OCC report as addressing practices at nine of the largest national banks. Those descriptions are the agencies' account of the conduct, rather than findings independently established by this report.
The bureau identifies several areas of consumer law it says may apply. They include the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and prohibitions on unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices.
Among the issues it highlights are required notices when a creditor takes an adverse action. Whether a particular decision violates a law depends on the facts and the applicable requirements. The announcement does not resolve an individual account dispute.
Investigation is a procedural stage
The bureau says it has supervisory authority over banks with more than $10 billion in assets. It presents the initiative as an exercise of its consumer-protection responsibilities.
An announced investigation is not a court judgment or a completed enforcement finding. The release announces no penalty amount, repayment program or deadline for an affected customer to claim money.
It also does not provide the evidence necessary to independently assess every account decision described in the underlying OCC report.
A route for consumer complaints
The CFPB encourages people who believe they experienced unlawful conduct to submit a complaint through its consumer complaint process.
Submitting a complaint does not itself establish a violation or guarantee a particular remedy. The announcement's value for readers is the bureau's stated area of scrutiny and its existing complaint route.
The separate OCC report, bank responses and individual customer files were not reviewed for this article.