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"The U.S. economy cannot afford a quarter-trillion dollar constitutional in a ruling handed down last May.
hit, and workers in cities across the country should not
have to suffer so corporate megastores can pad their prof- Rep. Barr wants to overturn that decision legislatively. Al-
its," said Richard Hunt EPC executive director. most as soon as the new Congress was seated he intro-
duced the Taking Account of Bureaucrats' Spending Act
Neil Walker, managing director of macro modeling and to subject the CFPB to the congressional appropriations
scenarios at Oxford Economics, said local merchants will process.
be hardest hit. "The data highlights the outsized impact
this policy could have on areas dependent on travel and "The CFPB is the most unaccountable and unchecked
hospitality-driven revenues, which are especially vul- agency in the entire federal bureaucracy," he said. "By in-
nerable to shifts in rewards-driven consumer behavior," troducing the TABS Act, I am taking action to bring the
Walker said. CFPB under the scrutiny it desperately needs."

CFPB rules under fire A turnaround on digital assets
The banking industry is taking issue with the CFPB's data Expect copious deliberation over cryptocurrencies in
sharing rule, which is part of an effort to push the United Washington over the next few years. As one of his first
States toward an "open banking" system. Open banking, official acts, President Donald Trump signed an executive
which had its genesis in Europe, is a financial services order banning the creation and issuance of central bank
model that uses secure APIs to share data between finan- digital currencies (CBDC) in the United States, in effect
cial institutions and authorized third parties. overturning an executive order issued by former President
Biden in 2022, which called for a framework to explore
Acting under authority granted it by the Dodd-Frank digital asset regulation and the potential development of
Act, the CFPB penned a personal financial data rule that a CBDC.
grants consumers control over what organizations can ac-
cess their critical banking information, and to what extent. Legislation banning CBDCs passed the House in May 2024
with backing from Democrats and Republicans but failed
A survey recently released by the American Bankers As- to garner Senate approval. To date, fewer than a dozen
sociation revealed that financial institution (FI) executives countries have CBDCs, primarily third world countries,
are "dubious" about the CFPB's data-sharing rule, with although the Bank of England is considering a digital
nearly a third saying it will not benefit FIs or their cus- pound, and the European Central Bank is working on a
tomers. Whether this will result in a push for changes is digital euro pilot that could launch as soon as 2028.
unclear, but the banking industry tends to have more clout
when Congress is controlled by Republicans. While the Fed had been studying the CBDC concept, that
work appears to be in the early stages. "People don't need
Meanwhile, the CFPB is getting slammed over a proposed to worry about a central bank digital currency; nothing
interpretive ruling that earned wage access products are like that is remotely close to happening any time soon,"
consumer loans subject to the Truth-in-Lending Act. As Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking
such, providers are required to disclose associated costs Committee in March 2024, according to published reports.
and fees prior to the release of money.
Making U.S. crypto leader
Earned wage products allow workers to obtain wages that Trump's executive order appears to fulfill a campaign
are earned prior to payday. According to a CFPB study, promise he made to the cryptocurrency industry that he
demand for these products continues to grow, with the av- would support Bitcoin over a CBDC. While on the cam-
erage worker in its sample logging 27 such transactions a paign trail, Trump also vowed to make the U.S. a global
year, for which they paid an average fee of $3.18. leader in digital financial innovation.

The CFPB ruling reversed a policy issued under the first Additionally, Trump's executive order mandates the cre-
Trump Administration, so it's probable the rule could ation of a national digital asset stockpile. According to re-
change again under the second Trump Administration. porting by Yahoo Finance the federal government already
holds more than 198,000 Bitcoins, which as of this writing,
CFPB funding questioned, again would be valued at nearly $21 billion.
The CFPB, unlike most government agencies, is not funded
through congressional appropriations, but by the Federal Trump's priority aligns with the Boosting Innovation,
Reserve, which obtains its operating revenue from fees as- Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized
sessed FIs for things like payment processing services. Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act introduced in the
U.S. Senate in July 2024 by Senator Cynthia Lummis, R-
This has been a stick in the craw of many in the industries Wyo. She described the creation of a strategic Bitcoin re-
it regulates, as well as Republican lawmakers. However, serve as a step in a broader plan to reduce the national
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the funding structure as debt.

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