Fed/CFPB OIG Recommends CFPB Strengthen Conflicts-of-Interest Controls

Consumer Finance CFPB OIG

On March 15, the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (OIG) issued its findings in the evaluation report titled The CFPB Can Strengthen Its Controls for Identifying and Avoiding Conflicts of Interest Related to Vendor Activities (the Report), stemming from an evaluation of the risk of potential conflicts of interest when using vendors to support fair lending compliance and enforcement analysis. The Report covers the time period of June 2012 through January 2016. To assist the CFPB’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity’s fair lending oversight function, the Bureau contracted with vendors to “conduct statistical analysis designed to assess an institution’s compliance with fair lending laws and to serve as an expert witness when needed.” The function of the evaluation was to assess whether the Bureau effectively identified and avoided the risk of potential conflicts of interest for vendors supporting this type of work. Notably, while the OIG concluded that the Bureau’s relationship with one vendor heightened the risk of possible conflicts of interest and increased the need for timelier vendor disclosures and communications—a vendor took nearly two years to disclose a relationship with a firm included on a CFPB task order but later confirmed no work was performed—no actual conflicts of interest were found in its evaluation. The OIG presented the following recommendations:

• Ensure vendors comply with existing documentation requirements;
• Clarify roles and responsibilities; and
• Improve the facilitation of vendor disclosure of potential conflicts or receive affirmation that conflicts do not exist at the start of every task order.

Furthermore, the OIG recommended evaluating the costs and benefits of performing more fair lending analysis internally, which may effectively mitigate such risks