CFPB ramps up enforcement hiring

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is hiring 20 additional enforcement attorneys as the bureau ramps up investigations of repeat offenders and expands its authority over nonbanks and fintechs.

Eric Halperin, the CFPB’s enforcement chief, told staff at an all-hands meeting last week that the enforcement team received the go-ahead to add 20 more full-time employees, most of them attorneys. The bureau confirmed the hires were part of its latest budgeting process. 

The recent hiring comes as the CFPB is building out its capacity for data collection related to fair-lending exams as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning processes.

Under acting Director Dave Uejio, the CFPB beefed up hiring last year and ended fiscal 2021 with 1,591 employees, a 6% increase from 2020. The CFPB spent roughly $101.8 million on employee compensation and benefits for the 1,597 employees who worked at the agency as of December 31, 2021, according to its most recent financial report. 

Though staff levels rose steadily from the CFPB’s inception in 2010 to 2017, the bureau instituted a two-year hiring freeze during the Trump administration that depleted its ranks to roughly 1,430 employees in 2019. 

The CFPB currently has job openings for fair-lending analysts, examiners, research analysts, supervisory examiners, senior advisors, supervisory attorneys and others posted on USAjobs.gov. It is also looking for a regional director of supervisions and examinations based in San Francisco.

The CFPB is funded through transfers from the Federal Reserve System, which is capped at 12% of the Fed’s 2009 total operating expenses. The transfer cap for the 2021 fiscal year was $717.5 million.