As you know, we regularly monitor comments made by presidential candidates that are of interest to our members. This is the latest in a series in the Federal Review, The Data Debate: Presidential Candidates on Consumer Data.

Mike Bloomberg has laid out his financial reform proposals, as listed on his campaign and reported by the NYT. As noted by the Times, he wants to see the “strengthening of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”.” Some might express surprise since credit reporting is already in the CFPB’s jurisdiction.  The Bloomberg campaign website offers a smidgen of additional information.  On the website, Bloomberg, is elected, will “make[s] credit reporting companies more responsible for the personal data they manage”, but did not mention similar data requirements on non-credit reporting companies.

It should be noted that this is a reversal of his previous stances as the Mayor of NYC and could be seen as a way to win over the progressive wings of the electorate. As the consummate business man, he would most likely be very apprehensive to actually jeopardize the economy by following through on any progressive reforms to our industry

Per his campaign website, the proposals are as follows:

The big credit-reporting companies are supposed to make finance work more smoothly. But they lack an adequate incentive to take care of regular consumers, because their primary customers are the banks and other institutions that use the data. As a result, they create innumerable problems for the people whose personal information they are supposed to manage. They have lost millions of Americans’ data to hackers, exploited people’s fears of identity theft and failed to take proper responsibility for correcting myriad life-complicating errors.

Mike will work with Congress to:

  • Require credit-reporting companies to obtain consumers’ express consent before disseminating their personal information.
  • Place the burden of proof on credit-reporting companies in disputes with consumersrequiring them to remove data that they cannot demonstrate to be correct.
  • Establish and enforce more ambitious standards for data privacy, security and accuracy.
  • Empower consumers to sue credit-reporting companies — and the companies that provide them with data — for injunctive relief, allowing courts to compel companies to fix harmful practices, rather than merely paying damages.