CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a federal agency created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Under 12 U.S.C. 5491, the Bureau was established in the Federal Reserve System as an independent bureau to regulate the offering and provision of consumer financial products or services under the federal consumer financial laws. Its authority covers laws such as the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.

The CFPB writes rules, supervises large banks and nonbank lenders, and brings enforcement actions that can order refunds to consumers. It also runs a public complaint system at consumerfinance.gov, where people can file complaints about banks, lenders, credit bureaus, debt collectors, and other financial companies. The company generally must respond, and complaint data is published in a searchable database.

The agency matters for class actions in a few ways. Its enforcement orders and reports often document practices, such as surprise overdraft fees, credit reporting errors, or unlawful debt collection, that private lawyers later challenge in court. Its rules can define what counts as a violation. And filing a CFPB complaint creates a dated record that can help if you later join a lawsuit, although a complaint is not a lawsuit and does not stop any legal deadline.

The agency's priorities shift with each administration, but the consumer protection statutes it enforces, and the private lawsuits those laws allow, remain in place. See credit report error lawsuits, overdraft and NSF fee lawsuits, and the FCRA explainer.