CFPB Semi-Annual Report Highlights Key Regulatory Changes

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its Semi-Annual Report to Congress on April 3, 2026. This report summarizes the Bureau's activities for the period spanning October 1, 2024, through December 31, 2025 (unless otherwise noted). The key highlights below are direct excerpts from the Report. For complete details, consult the full document, as these selections do not cover all content.

 

“The CFPB is also focused on identifying and remedying tangible harms that are clearly within the CFPB’s statutory authority, and on collaborative efforts with entities to resolve problems so that there are measurable benefits to consumers. The CFPB closed out 76% of its Supervisory Actions (nearly 1,500) and a substantial majority of its outstanding open examinations;

 

Are now targeted and significantly scaled down, focusing on the Bureau’s priorities. In Enforcement, we closed numerous investigations, terminated or modified over twenty final orders, and dismissed or withdrew from nearly twenty actions filed under prior leadership that represented an expansion of the Bureau’s mandate

 

During the reporting period, the CFPB reviewed its contracts to streamline, enhance speed and efficiency, and reduce costs. The CFPB terminated any budgeted line items and active contracts with DEI-related purposes.

 

The CFPB removed DEI-related contract terms from all active contracts and solicitations. In place of these provisions, the CFPB drafted the following clause for inclusion in all new contracts:

 

The CFPB has adopted a robust deregulatory agenda focused on reversing regulatory overreach by the agency under the leadership of former Director Rohit Chopra, especially via punishment of disfavored industries.

 

The CFPB’s current regulatory priorities include (1) reconsidering two rules finalized under former Director Chopra, the Small Business Lending Rule and the Personal Financial Data Rights Rule, and (2) pursuing a rulemaking under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 (ECOA) and the Bureau’s Regulation B, which would facilitate compliance by clarifying the obligations imposed by the statute.

 

May 12, 2025, the CFPB published Interpretive Rules, Policy Statements, and Advisory Opinions, Withdrawal. In this document, the CFPB stated that it is the CFPB’s current policy to avoid issuing guidance except where necessary and where compliance burdens would be reduced rather than increased. The document also withdrew 8 policy statements, 7 interpretive rules, 13 advisory opinions, and 39 other guidance documents.

 

In addition to the withdrawal of these guidance materials, from May 2025 to October 2025, the CFPB also separately withdrew or rescinded many other rulemaking documents, including interim final rules, final rules, proposed rules, and guidance documents. Additional details are highlighted as follows:

 

The CFPB is making strides to improve the rigor and transparency of its research. The CFPB issued a report in fulfillment of Executive Order 14303, entitled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” described below. As noted in the report, the CFPB is committed to meeting all requirements of the Executive Order as adapted to meet the CFPB’s unique mission and is taking steps to fulfill the nine Gold Standard Science Tenets outlined therein.

 

The CFPB continues to work on a number of deregulatory actions, including the regulatory priorities mentioned at the beginning of Section 2 of this report. These priorities are the reconsideration of the Small Business Lending rulemaking and the Personal Financial Data Rights rulemaking as well as the Regulation B rulemaking. The Bureau also expects to continue work on a number of other rulemaking projects. For additional information on the CFPB’s current deregulatory agenda, see the Bureau’s Unified Agenda below.

 

 

The CFPB’s supervisory activity is confidential, and the CFPB does not issue public supervisory actions. This section focuses on the Bureau’s general activity throughout the reporting period, and on the supervisory strategy and priorities that are guiding supervisory activity going forward.

 

In April 2025, the CFPB rescinded its prior supervisory and enforcement priorities. The Bureau announced that it is reducing supervisory exams by at least 50 percent and focusing supervision activity on depository institutions (as opposed to nondepository institutions), on actual consumer fraud, and on areas that are clearly within its statutory authority. The Bureau is not pursuing supervision under novel legal theories, including of the Bureau’s authority. The Bureau is avoiding duplicating similar oversight either at the federal or state level. Additionally, the Bureau is focusing its supervisory authorities on conciliation, correction, and remediation of harms subject to consumers’ complaints.

 

The CFPB was able to close 1,477 of its 1,946 outstanding Supervisory Actions (approximately 76 percent), either because the entity demonstrated that it had sufficiently addressed the Supervisory Action, or because the Supervisory Action was based on findings that no longer align with new Bureau priorities. Some of these Actions went back to 2012, requiring continuing reporting and administrative work by entities focusing on decade plus-old issues. The Bureau notified entities through Closeout Letters which Supervisory Actions were closed, that any prior communications regarding violations were null and void, and that they were no longer required to provide any additional information or reporting on those Actions.

This provided certainty to supervised entities that a matter was truly closed, unlike prior leadership’s open-ended communications which suggested that the Bureau can come back anytime to revive the matter.

 

Given this targeted focus, the supervisory teams are being appropriately and significantly scaled down from the former eight-by-eight-by-eight model, where eight examiners spend eight weeks, eight hours a day, at a supervised institution, with practically no other limits to their remit. This model did not take into account the risk of the exam or the experience of the examiners. Instead, going forward, the team size and the length of the exam is reduced to reflect targeted queries and be commensurate with the risk tier in which a particular entity’s line, subject to supervision, appears. Moreover, the resource level (time and/or number of examiners) decreases once the CFPB receives the information request responses and is able to adjust the scope of individual exams based on these responses.

 

For purposes of the 12 U.S.C. § 5496 reporting requirement, the CFPB has determined that any actions asserting claims pursuant to 12 U.S.C. § 5552 are “significant.” The CFPB has been apprised of the following developments in pending state attorney general and regulatory actions asserting claims under 12 U.S.C. § 5552 during the reporting period of October 1, 2024 – December 31, 2025, which are listed in descending chronological order by initial filing date.

 

For purposes of the 12 U.S.C. § 5496 reporting requirement, the CFPB has determined that any actions asserting claims pursuant to 12 U.S.C. § 5552 are “significant.” The CFPB has been apprised of the following developments in pending state attorney general and regulatory actions asserting claims under 12 U.S.C. § 5552 during the reporting period of October 1, 2024 – December 31, 2025, which are listed in descending chronological order by initial filing date.

 

The Office of Consumer Response uses a variety of approaches to identify trends and possible consumer harm. Examples include:

Since its inception, the CFPB’s consumer complaint portal has been left vulnerable to credit repair scammers who, among other things, submit large volumes of duplicative complaints, many of which are fraudulent in nature. The longer the system has been left exposed to these bad actors the more emboldened they have become. Credit or consumer reporting was the most complained about consumer financial product or service over the preceding year composing 87 percent of all complaints with the next closest product, debt collection, representing just 6 percent.

 

The CFPB is continuing its work to get to the bottom of what is occurring. Having a system that ignores statutorily established procedures and is overwhelmed by fictitious claims distracts the process from legitimate grievances and thus harms the consumers the Bureau has a mandate to protect.

 

The approved budget for Fiscal Year 2025 was $806,408,352 reflecting former Director Chopra’s estimates of the resources needed for the CFPB to carry out its mission. The previous administration requested $494,000,000 from the Federal Reserve in the first two quarters of FY 2025. Accounting for available balances and the new administration’s push for dramatically increased efficiencies, Acting Director Vought made a determination that no additional funds were necessary to carry out the authorities of the CFPB for FY 2025.

 

The Fair Lending arena, the Bureau no longer uses disparate impact in its supervision and enforcement and no longer consults with financial institutions regarding special purpose credit programs that rely on race, national origin, or sex. Instead, we prioritize combatting intentional discrimination and debanking;

 

The CFPB has focused its fair lending supervisory and enforcement resources on matters with direct evidence of intentional racial discrimination and identified victims and has not engaged in or facilitated unconstitutional racial classification or discrimination in its enforcement of fair lending law. The Bureau has not engaged in redlining or bias assessment supervision reviews or enforcement matters based solely on statistical correlation and/or stray remarks that may be susceptible to adverse inferences.

 

During the reporting period, the CFPB initiated nine supervisory activities onsite at financial services institutions under the CFPB’s jurisdiction to determine compliance with federal laws, including ECOA, HMDA, and Regulations B and C, respectively. CFPB Examiners issued matters requiring attention, which direct entities to take corrective actions and are monitored by the CFPB through follow-up supervisory events. The CFPB did not cite any fair lending violations during the reporting period.”