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The Trump Administration is ordering all CFPB examiners to read a "Humility Pledge" to officials at supervised entities before conducting exams.
In making the announcement, CFPB officials sharply criticized the Biden Administration's approach to exams. "Previously, under the leadership of Director Chopra and Biden's Director of Supervision Lorelei Salas, a former Soros activist who was put on leave in February 2025, this division was the weaponized arm of the CFPB," the CFPB said.
The bureau continued that while "these exams were previously done with unnecessary personnel, outrageous travel expenses, and with the thuggery pervasive in prior leadership, they will now be done respectfully, promptly, professionally, and under budget."
Bureau officials said that examiners no longer will ask what they called invasive and irrelevant questions or demand expansive information they do not need.
"The bureau's goal is to work collaboratively with the entities to review entities' processes for compliance and/or remedy existing problems," the agency said.
The president of the union representing CFPB employees blasted bureau Acting Director Russell Vought for the plan.
"Instead of traumatizing CFPB workers with his roleplay fantasies, Vought should resign so we can finally do our jobs protecting Americans from Wall Street fraud again," CFPB Union President Cat Farman, said.
Here is the "Humility Pledge" that examiners will read:
CFPB HUMILITY IN SUPERVISION PLEDGE
The upcoming Supervision examination cycle is going to be fundamentally different from the prior ones under the former Director Chopra. For 2026 examinations, in line with the Memorandum on Supervision and Enforcement Priorities (April, 2025) the Bureau will focus its supervision resources on pressing threats to consumers, particularly service members and their families, and veterans, and in the areas that are clearly within the Bureau's statutory authority. The Bureau will also avoid, where possible, duplication of supervision, where States or other regulators are already doing that job.
For this round of examinations, there will be greater transparency regarding the process and clarity regarding expectations. Bureau-supervised entities will receive advance notice of scheduled examinations providing them with the opportunity to plan. Requests related to exams will focus on Bureau priorities and hew to the defined scope of the exam and not venture into areas outside the scope. The scope of the exams will be on identified priority markets and the resulting findings will focus on pattern and practice violations of law where there is tangible and identifiable consumer harm.
Likewise, Matters Requiring Attention will focus on pattern and practice violations of law where there is substantive and identifiable consumer harm or clear violations of the disclosure requirements.
No longer will the Bureau ask for expansive data sets or other information which may seem unrelated to the exam or include information inconsistent with Bureau priorities. Any follow-up requests by examiners will first be discussed with an entity and will be tailored to the scope of the exam and the information already received from the entity. Examination times, which used to be 8 weeks, will be reduced commensurate with the defined scope of exams.
Examiners will be encouraged and incentivized to complete the work promptly and under budget. Supervised entities can expect timely responses from the Bureau and appropriate follow-up on outstanding and open matters such as exams and MRAs.
In sum, the Bureau's goal is to work collaboratively with the entities to review entities' processes for compliance and/or remedy existing problems.The Bureau is doing so by encouraging self-reporting and resolving issues in Supervision, where feasible, instead of via Enforcement.
Noticeably absent from the CFPB's notice regarding the humility pledge is any indication of when examinations of supervised entities will begin and whether, consistent with its April 2025 Memorandum on Supervision and Enforcement, the CFPB intends to examine only or mostly large banks (those having assets of $10 billion or more) and not non-banks subject to CFPB supervision. That is not surprising in light of the fact that Acting Director Vought has previously stated that (i) the CFPB will run out of funds within a month or so and (ii) he will not request any additional funds from the Fed, given an opinion he recently received from DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel stating that the CFPB may not lawfully be funded by the Fed because it has no "combined earnings." In light of those two statements, one might reasonably question why the CFPB released the Humility Pledge now.
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