- 1The law lowers the cap on CFPB funding from 12% to 6.5% of Fed operating expenses.
- 2The CFPB drew $729.4M in FY 2024; the new cap would have limited it to about $425M.
- 3Small business data collection rules are already delayed one year and slated for a rewrite.
The "Big Beautiful Bill" that passed Thursday includes a provision that cuts the CFPB's annual funding ceiling almost in half.
The change
The 2010 Consumer Financial Protection Act, which created the bureau, capped transfers to the agency at 12% of the Federal Reserve System's total annual operating expenses. The new law lowers that figure to 6.5%.
For scale, the CFPB received $729.4 million from the Fed in fiscal year 2024, though it could have drawn up to $785.4 million. Had the new cap been in force, the agency could have taken no more than $425 million.
Small business finance angle
The small business finance industry has been watching the agency closely. Sweeping rules on data collection from small business lenders were supposed to take effect this month. The CFPB suspended compliance by a year and said it intends to rewrite the rules in the meantime.
The agency remains required by the 15-year-old statute to implement some form of data collection on small business lending.
Source reporting: deBanked.
