Warren: Regulation Will Help Customers and Banks

The newly appointed Consumer Financial Protection bureau adviser Elizabeth Warren has spoken up, and is claiming that financial regulation consolidation will benefit both consumers and banks alike. On Wednesday she gave a speech and shared her hope that Americans will begin seeing banks as friends and not enemies.

"Instead of seeing banks as their friends, as I did when I put my babysitting money in a savings account at Penn Square National Bank so my brothers didn't borrow it out of my sock drawer, too many Americans see dealing with banks like handling snakes - do it long enough and you'll get bit," she said in a speech Wednesday to the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington.

She said the new law will force banks and non-bank lenders to be subject to federal examination and will consolidate consumer financial protection activities performed by seven different agencies into one agency, "closing gaps in oversight."

Warren said the purpose was to make these lenders more palatable and user-friendly for the American people.

"Thanks to the new law, for the first time ever, we will have a single federal agency charged with writing the rules for all mortgages and all credit cards, regardless of whether they are issued by a federally chartered bank, a state chartered credit union, or a group of unlicensed investors," said Warren, in her speech to the Financial Services Roundtable.

Continue reading at CNN.com…

Obama to Tap Warren to Help Set Up Consumer Agency

President Obama named Elizabeth Warren as an advisor to help create his consumer financial protection bureau. The agency will be in charge of regulating Wall Street and enforcing new, strict financial protection law. Bloomberg.com posted a great article explaining the new bureau, check out a portion of their story below or read the full text here.

Warren will be an assistant to the president and a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, the statement said. The White House expects her to start immediately setting up the agency, which was established by this year’s Wall Street financial regulatory overhaul, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be a watchdog for the American consumer, charged with enforcing the toughest financial protections in history,” Obama will say at a 1:30 p.m. Washington time event in the Rose Garden announcing Warren’s position, according to prepared remarks released by the White House.

Warren will play a role in determining who will be the first director of the bureau when it becomes an independent agency housed at the Federal Reserve, a decision that isn’t expected for several months, perhaps not until 2011, the official said.

‘Same Vision’

“The president and I are committed to the same vision” for the consumer bureau, Warren’s statement said. “I am confident that I will have the tools I need to get the job done.”