Financial Consumer Hotline Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4332) to amend the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Act to require the Council to establish a single telephone number that consumers with complaints or inquiries could call and be routed to the appropriate Federal banking agency or State bank supervisor, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H.R. 4332, the Financial Consumers Hotline Act of 2008, which has received strong bipartisan support from the Financial Services Committee.

The bill establishes a single toll-free telephone number that consumers can call if they have a problem with their bank and want to speak to someone who can help them.

Given that depository institutions in the United States can be regulated by any of five Federal regulators or a State regulator, consumers often don't know what entity to call if they have a problem with their account.

In a hearing in my subcommittee, the regulators and consumer groups testified that customers often end up calling their Attorney General. Since State authority over national banks has been preempted by the Federal OCC, AGs can't help in this category.

This legislation builds on a suggestion that Comptroller Dugan put forward to provide consumers with a single number to call to get help with their banking issues, and we drafted it in close consultation with all five regulators.

As the OCC, the FDIC, and the OTS all testified, this legislation will be cost efficient as well as consumer friendly. I should note that CBO came out with an estimate last week. The bill would have no significant effect on direct spending or revenues. So this legislation can help our constituents without spending any money.

Right now, each of the agencies has a Web site and provides a phone number for consumers to call with questions and has a staff to follow up on complaints or inquiries, some of which may be unique to their responsibilities. For example, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has systems in place to respond to consumer inquiries about deposit insurance and bank failures.

This bill would not replace these existing consumer response systems, but helps consumers find them. It adds a simple one-stop routing method to minimize confusion for consumers who are unclear about where to call for help and directs them to the right agency for specialized assistance. The establishment of a single toll-free number will help encourage greater use of the agency's resources to help their consumers.

Establishment of a single toll-free number will also assist the banking regulators in compiling consumer complaints and inquiries so that better information would be available about problems or issues that cut across the institutions that the various agencies supervise. It would help governments spot developing problems. Congressional legislation and oversight would

also be better informed by such centralized statistics.

This legislation directs the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to set up the hotline. The Council is an existing interagency body established by statute to prescribe uniform principles and standards for financial institutions and to otherwise coordinate regulatory activity among the Federal banking regulators. The Federal Reserve, FDIC, NCUA, OCC, and OTS are all members of the Council.

The legislation also directs the Council to work with State banking regulators to integrate them into the hotline service. And, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors testified that they have already started to implement such a plan. The act also requires the Council to report to Congress 6 months after enactment on the agency's efforts to establish a public interagency Web site, likewise directing and referring consumer complaints and inquiries received on the Internet concerning any financial institution to the appropriate Federal or State financial institution regulatory agency.

I should note that not only the OCC but the Council as a whole has taken some steps in this direction on its own initiative, with an eye to both cutting costs and improving service to consumers. Last summer, the Council formed a working group to study ways in which the separate consumer complaint handling systems of each regulator could be streamlined and leveraged to better and more efficiently serve consumers.

With this legislation, we give consumers a statutory mandate and a timetable to support and guide these efforts, as well as a framework for congressional oversight.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I thank the Chair and the ranking member and subcommittee Ranking Member Biggert and many others for their help on this legislation. I urge a ``yea'' vote.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), the Chair of the Financial Institution Subcommittee, for her hard work on this bill, and I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this bill and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, if you are a consumer and you have a complaint or a problem of a financial nature, which regulator are you going to call, the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the CFTC, FTC, OFHEO, HUD, Treasury, OTS, NCUA, the SEC? In these challenging times, consumers should not have to have a Ph.D. in finance to quickly and easily get in touch with the appropriate State and Federal banking regulators.

Given the complexity of our banking system and the various regulators that work in this area, consumers may not know where to turn when they have a dispute with their institutions. This legislation creates a single hotline that can help steer consumers in the right direction. Federal regulators currently have had an informal system in place to redirect misplaced consumer complaints, and regulators are constantly trying to improve the system. But this bill will ensure that no consumer complaint falls through the cracks. Consumers should not have to make 12 phone calls to find the right regulator.

Again, I am pleased that this bill will ensure that consumer complaints are heard and that regulators are responsive. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I regrettably missed a number of votes to attend to a family emergency. Had I been present for these votes I would have votes as follows:

On rollcall No. 224, Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H. Res. 1079, I would have voted ``yea''.

On rollcall No. 225, Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to H.R. 4332, I would have voted ``yea.''

On rollcall No. 226, Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to S. 2739, I would have voted ``yea.''

On rollcall No. 227, Ordering the Previous Question for H.R. 5522, the Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Act, I would have voted ``yea.''

On rollcall No. 228, Providing for the consideration of H.R. 5522, the Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Prevention Act, I would have voted ``yea.''

On rollcall No .229, Motion to Suspend the Rules and Agree to the Senate Amendment to the SAFETEA-LU Technical Corrections Act, I would have voted ``yea.''

On rollcall No. 230, the George Miller of California Amendment, I would have voted ``aye.''

On rollcall No. 231, the Wilson of South Carolina Substitute Amendment, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall No. 238, the Flake Motion to Instruct Conferees, I would have voted ``no.''

On rollcall No. 239, to Suspend Rules and Agree to Senate Amendments, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained yesterday during the rollcall votes for the following three bills considered under suspension: H. Res. 1079, Supporting the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month 2008; HR 4332, Financial Consumer Hotline Act of 2007; S. 2739, Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008.

Had I been present, I would have voted: ``Yes'' on rollcall vote 224 (H. Res. 1079, Supporting the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month 2008); ``Yes'' on rollcall vote 225 (H.R. 4332, Financial Consumer Hotline Act of 2007); ``Yes'' on rollcall vote 226 (S. 2739, Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008).