Opposing view: CFPB is hurting customers, not helping

• Americans and small businesses desperately need credit.
• Why attack financial institutions?
• New agency more interested in defending itself.

We continue to hear about the many American families who live paycheck to paycheck and have limited access to credit.

Yet the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Obama administration continue to attack financial institutions, further limiting a consumer's ability to access credit.

They also refuse to offer any suggestions to address the issue at hand. It's apparent that CFPB, created by the troubling Dodd-Frank Act, is more interested in defending itself than helping our nation's consumers and small businesses.

Dodd-Frank was supposed to address the causes of the financial crisis that rippled through every part of our economy. Instead, we have more bureaucracy and a law that doesn't address the causes of the crisis.

The stated goals of the agency are, in some respect, laudable. The problem lies in the execution.

Look no further than CFPB's new rules on international transfers of money, which are used by millions of Americans, often to send money to families overseas. The rule will ultimately burden consumers rather than protect them because it is out of sync with the way institutions conduct transfers. It puts in jeopardy consumer access to international funds transfers through their banks and credit unions because thousands of institutions will likely end this popular consumer service.

Americans today need protections, which is why every financial regulator had a consumer protection department before the CFPB was created. A growing number of Americans also desperately need access to credit. Instead of helping this situation, CFPB is making credit harder to come by, and making it harder for businesses to expand, grow, hire and provide services to consumers.

Speaking as a former bank examiner, I can tell you that putting consumer protections before the safety and soundness of financial institutions puts the American public at risk.

CFPB is part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to creating an environment in which our small businesses can succeed and consumers are actually protected. We must guard against a bureaucracy more focused on scoring political points than solving the underlying problems of our financial system.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., is a member of the House Financial Services Committee.