The Ombudsman’s Office annual report, which I delivered to the Director, is available today on our webpage.
This year, we reflected on our ombudsman standards of practice of independence, impartiality, and confidentiality as we assist consumers, financial entities, consumer or trade groups, and others in informally resolving process issues with the CFPB. Our standards of practice are evergreen; they are ever relevant and foundational to our work, serving as a framework as we advocate for fair process in new ways each year.
As in previous reports, the Ombudsman in Practice section describes our inreach (internal engagement), including an updated chart reflecting new, regular meetings that we have across the CFPB. The section also discusses our outreach engagement with external stakeholders. Next, we discuss some broader, impactful topics in the Demonstrating the Ombudsman in Practice section, which illustrates the many ways we can assist, such as: providing feedback on resources for potential industry whistleblowers; confirming surveys are from the CFPB; and offering feedback and suggestions on a wide variety of draft CFPB materials prior to their public release.
Our report also describes our post-examination survey of supervised entities which is a confidential avenue for entities to share their feedback following participation in a CFPB supervisory examination. That section discusses the survey format; has a further description of entities surveyed; and includes a representative set of survey participants’ unattributed feedback and recommendations in response to three questions (what worked well; what did not work well, if anything; and what would you change moving forward) about three topic areas (supervision materials and resources; interpersonal communications; and the end of the examination).
Again, this year, we used an FAQ format for our Analyzing Individual Inquiries section to answer questions we often receive, such as when individuals contact us for assistance on redress stemming from CFPB enforcement actions. We also include two individual inquiry examples, one from a consumer and one from an entity, and describe the issue, the CFPB process, what happened, and how we assisted.
The Ombudsman in Brief section contains longer summary versions of various topics from this year, including: adding documentation to consumer complaints submitted on the telephone, providing information on 711 for Telecommunications Relay Service users, and distinguishing between new and duplicate consumer complaints.
Lastly, our Systemic Reviews section has a discussion on CFPB information collections which describes: information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act; the PRA approval process for information collection; where to learn about the opportunity to comment on CFPB information collections; and sharing collected information within the CFPB.
We look forward to hearing from you as we continue to advocate for fair process in consumer financial protection and welcome you to contact us.
Wendy Kamenshine is the Ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
