New CFPB leadership continues its trend of dismissing prior CFPB enforcement actions against alleged corporate wrongdoers—this time against Solo Funds, a nonbank financial tech company that allegedly operated a digital lending platform that used dark patterns to trick people into paying fees in the form of “tips” and “donations.”

Consolidating banking regulatory agencies under Treasury is bad for several reasons, outlined in this statement. The proposed merger would reduce transparency, oversight, and accountability for the American people while overly politicizing bank regulation and supervision.

Read Better Markets’ statement here.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission terminated about a dozen probationary employees. The employees include attorneys in the agency’s enforcement and market oversight divisions.

The CFTC is already severely understaffed and has fired even more employees, making it even harder for the agency to police the markets.

Read Better Markets’ statement here.

The Trump administration appears to be preparing to transfer employees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as part of a broad reshaping of bank supervision. The OCC has created email distribution lists for [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected], according to Outlook templates obtained by Bloomberg Law from multiple sources at different agencies who were granted anonymity to prevent retaliation.

The Trump administration has fired members of the “privacy team” at the Office of Personnel Management, a move that will hinder public access and scrutiny over government records related to the security clearances of Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency.

Fewer FDIC staff to supervise banks (now and in the future), manage the deposit insurance fund, conduct resolution of failed banks, and protect consumers will directly lead to a banking system that is weaker and less safe. A shortage of trained and experienced examiners was found to be a key cause of the 2023 bank failures. This decision will hurt the agency and banking system now and for years to come because the examiner pipeline will be empty.