Oversight of lending practices to military personnel should continue, the New Jersey State Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said.
He, with a bipartisan roster of 32 other states’ attorneys general, sent a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, urging him to continue to enforce the Military Lending Act.
That act, enacted in 2006 and amended in 2013 to give the CFPB the power to enforce it, protects servicemembers from amassing unmanageable debt and being forced to leave the military because of revoked security clearances due to debt.
Reports surfaced in August that Mulvaney planned to suspend those examinations, effectively ending oversight of banks, thrifts, credit unions, payday lenders, and other loan originators who work with servicemembers.
“We owe New Jerseyans in the armed forces, and members of the armed forces who are stationed here, protection from exploitative lending practices that can interfere with their commitment to our country’s national defense,” said Attorney General Grewal. “Our service members and their loved ones deserve a federal consumer protection agency that will stand with them, not side with predatory lenders and financial institutions trying to make a quick buck off military families.”
