There are certain nonbank markets that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) has the statutory right to supervise irrespective of size (e.g., mortgage, private education loan, payday lending). Then, there are other consumer finance markets to which Congress gave the CFPB supervisory authority over only “larger participants.” But what constitutes a “larger participant,” like what supervisory rules should be applied by the Bureau, was left in the first instance up to the CFPB.
The CFPB has already attempted to define what constitutes a “larger participant” for several industries, including consumer reporting, consumer debt collection, automobile financing, and student-loan servicing.
