The CFPB has announced that its new Consumer Advisory Board will hold its inaugural meeting on Thursday, September 27 in St. Louis, Missouri. Director Cordray will be speaking at the meeting, which is open to the public. 

At the same time it announced the names of its appointees to the Consumer Advisory Board, the CFPB also announced that it had appointed six professors to its Academic Research Council.  In his blog post last week about the appointments, Alan Kaplinsky noted that the announcement has raised eyebrows because the CFPB was not required or authorized to organize the Council under Dodd-Frank and did not seek public input on its nominations to the Council as it did for the Consumer Advisory Board. Moreover, while the CFPB provided biographies for its Consumer Advisory Board appointees, it did not do so with respect to the Council appointees.   

The Council’s first meeting, which was held on July 27, was not open to the public.  Given the questions raised by the CFPB’s establishment of the Academic Research Council, we think it’s particularly important that future Council meetings be open to the public.