The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is pleased to present our Semi-Annual Report to Congress for the period beginning January 1, 2026, and ending June 30, 2026, except where otherwise noted.

Message from Acting Director Paoletta

This Report covers the remaining six months of the Bureau's work under the tenure of then-Acting Director R. Vought, who set the Bureau on a transformative path, reversing abuses and overreach of its statutory mandates under the former Director Chopra. During this period, we have continued to advance our President's priorities, promoting policies benefiting consumers.

This leadership is committed to fixing the Bureau's broken consumer complaint system. The Bureau ceased publication of unverified complaint narratives and visualizations since the utility of such publication is minimal, causing confusion among consumers and needlessly harming companies' reputations. The Bureau aligned its complaint process with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by directing consumers to dispute with consumer reporting agencies first before submitting complaints. The Bureau also published an updated Company Portal Manual to set clear and consistent response expectations across industries and companies. Finally, the Bureau enhanced the system's identity protections by requiring two-factor authentication.

The Bureau has continued to implement its robust deregulatory agenda by finalizing two fair lending rulemakings. First, the CFPB advanced the President's priorities by issuing a final rule amending Regulation B (Reg B) of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) to affirm that, as a statutory and constitutional matter, ECOA does not authorize disparate impact liability. The amended rule also prohibits use of race, color, national origin, or sex as eligibility criteria for Special Purpose Credit Programs. The second rulemaking amended Reg B provisions implementing Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act to refocus the rule's coverage of credit transactions and financial institutions and remove data collection requirements that were not in the statute, such as LGBTQIA+-owned business status and use of disaggregated categories in collecting race and ethnicity data points.

This leadership has continued to ensure that our enforcement work is clearly within the CFPB's statutory authority and aligned with this administration's priorities. We adopted new Enforcement Principles focusing on addressing actual consumer harm; ensuring enforcement actions comport with due process; collaborating with institutions to address issues voluntarily and remedy consumer harm quickly; and operating efficiently by refraining from duplicative enforcement work. This new approach resulted in promptly securing over $250,000 in consumer redress for over 2,000 consumers who were affected by Bilt's transition to a new bank partner. Instead of initiating a protracted investigation and a public enforcement action that would have left harmed consumers waiting for years without any relief, CFPB leadership engaged with Bilt collaboratively and directly. The Bureau also has continued only matters that align with our priorities, and obtained favorable results for consumers, especially service members and their families and veterans.

The CFPB executed a new exam schedule consistent with its supervision priorities, focusing on depository institutions, actual consumer fraud, and areas clearly within the CFPB's statutory authority. Supervision is no longer relying on novel legal theories, nor duplicating similar federal or state oversight. Exams are governed by the Humility in Supervision Pledge, which outlines how examiners conduct supervisory work, such as ascertaining compliance of clearly identified product lines, directly tied to the governing statutory and regulatory regime. The exams focus on conciliation, correction, and remediation of consumer harm.

Full Report

Semi-Annual Report to Congress