Warren and Geithner pledge quick implementation of new financial protections for consumers

Warren and Geithner tackle mortgage forms

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is promising to move quickly to simplify the paperwork consumers receive when taking out a home mortgage.

Obama adviser Elizabeth Warren and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday that the administration was committed to implementing, as soon as possible, several consumer protections that are part of the sweeping overhaul of the financial system that Congress passed in the summer.

Geithner and Warren made the comments as part of a forum they held at the Treasury Department with a number of consumer advocacy groups, financial literacy counselors and representatives of the mortgage industry to receive input on ways to simplify mortgage disclosure forms.

“Whenever possible, we are committed to expediting completion of the law’s requirements ahead of statutory deadlines,” Geithner said. “Moving quickly to improve mortgage disclosures is one in a series of concrete steps we’re taking.”

One of the requirements of the new Dodd-Frank law is to combine and simplify two overlapping mortgage disclosure forms, one required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the other by the Federal Reserve.

Despite a decade of efforts, the government has yet to combine the two overlapping forms.

Warren said that streamlining the disclosure process would give families better tools to make better choices when choosing financial products.

“This is particularly true in the mortgage market, where borrowers receive stacks of incomprehensible paperwork when they’re looking for a loan,” she said. “Fine print obscures the cost of credit and makes it impossible for families to compare products.”

The Treasury forum was the first event Warren has held since being selected by President Barack Obama last Friday to serve as the overseer of the effort to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the new law.

Facing the prospect of a likely Senate filibuster, Obama decided against nominating Warren, a Harvard law professor, to head the new agency. Instead, he chose to name her as a special adviser to the White House and to Treasury in charge of leading the effort to set up the new bureau. In that job, she will not require Senate confirmation.

Geithner and Warren had some tense exchanges in Warren’s previous role as head of the Congressional Oversight Panel that served as a watchdog for the government’s financial bailout efforts. But participants at Tuesday’s session said the two officials, who sat side-by-side during the discussions, demonstrated a good working relationship.

“It was a very productive meeting. I felt there was a clear effort to build consensus and work collaboratively on the part of Secretary Geithner and Elizabeth Warren,” said David Berenbaum, chief program officer for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, who participated in the afternoon discussions. “They demonstrated they wanted to work with representatives of the financial industry and consumer activists.”

In an appearance earlier Tuesday on CBS’s “The Early Show,” Warren said that she would not back down in the face of business resistance to her selection as the bureau’s first director.

Warren said that Obama told her not to worry about job titles, but to “start pushing back” against companies fighting new regulations aimed at protecting borrowers.

She said, “That’s exactly what I intend to do, and I intend to do it as hard as I can.”