Featuring Todd Zywicki, Kyle Hauptman, and John Berlau
Online Event
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recently published Taskforce Report on Federal Consumer Financial Law offers dozens of market solutions to improve consumer welfare and consumer choice, based on thorough data analysis. Released in the final days of CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger’s tenure, the report advises all financial regulatory agencies to ease regulatory burdens on banks and credit unions as well as eliminate barriers to entry for innovative new types of financial institutions.
Join CEI for a stimulating discussion of market-friendly ideas to improve access to capital and credit and financial inclusion for all consumers with Taskforce Chair Todd Zywicki, National Credit Union Administration Vice Chairman Kyle Hauptman, and CEI Senior Fellow John Berlau, in conversation with CEI President Kent Lassman. They will discuss the creation of the report, the initiatives it champions, and the strong case for increasing competition with established financial institutions through approval of FinTech banks and industrial lending companies.
Todd J. Zywicki, CFPB Taskforce Chair and Professor of Law, George Mason University
Kyle S. Hauptman, Vice Chairman, National Credit Union Administration
John Berlau, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Kent Lassman, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Todd J. Zywicki is George Mason University (GMU) Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia School of Law, Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and former Executive Director of the GMU Law and Economics Center. He teaches in the area of Bankruptcy, Contracts, Commercial Law, Law and Economics, and Public Choice and the Law. During 2020-2021 he served as the Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. He served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law and Economics in 2019. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017 and as Editor from 2001-2002. Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his JD from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an MA in Economics from Clemson University and an AB cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College. He is a Member of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Board of Directors.
The Honorable Kyle S. Hauptman serves as vice chairman of the board of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 2020 and sworn in as the 24th member of the NCUA Board on December 14, 2020. Prior to his joining the NCUA Board, he served as Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AK) economic policy advisor and as staff director of the Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Policy. Previously, Hauptman held the position of Executive Director of the Main Street Growth Project and Senior Vice President at Jefferies & Co. He worked at Lehman Brothers as a bond trader in New York City and in the firm’s international offices in Tokyo and Sydney, and served as a voting member on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. Hauptman served on President Donald J. Trump’s transition team in 2016 and was Senator Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) policy advisor for financial services during the 2012 presidential campaign.
John Berlau is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. His work focuses on how public policy affects access to capital, entrepreneurship, and investments made by the public and business community alike. In recent years, he has studied the consequences of financial reform efforts passed by Congress like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, including the Dodd-Frank Act; and the placement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. Berlau is a contributing writer for Forbes and the author of George Washington, Entrepreneur. Before joining CEI, he was an award-winning financial and political journalist. He served as Washington correspondent for Investor’s Business Daily and as a staff writer for Insight magazine, published by The Washington Times.
Kent Lassman hosts and moderates the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Online Event series. His day job as CEI president and CEO involves managing the organization’s operations and overseeing strategy for policy, communications, and development. Since CEI’s Online Event series began in early 2020, Lassman has interviewed policy makers and leading thinkers, including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, National Review’s Kevin Williamson, and Harvard’s Cass Sunstein.