U.S. House to Move to Protect Bank Information

 

House Republicans on Wednesday said they will soon move legislation that would make it more difficult for consumer advocates or other groups to obtain sensitive information that banks share with the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In a rare moment of political harmony over the bureau, some Democrats said they are on board with the change.

"I support the goal of this bill," Carolyn Maloney, a senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said on Wednesday at a congressional hearing with an agenda that included legislation for the added legal protection.

Republican Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the House Financial Services subcommittee that oversees the bureau, said at the hearing that a bill providing the added protection, which already applies to other banking regulators, will be considered soon.

"It is our intent to move this legislation quickly," Capito said, without laying out a specific time frame.

Banks have been sounding alarms that due to an oversight by Congress when writing the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, some confidential information that institutions share with the bureau could be made public through legal challenges.

Bank executives have said this lack of protection raises the threat of lawsuits and could make banks reluctant to freely share some information with the new bureau.  Read more.