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FHA Officer to Join CFPB

Federal Housing Administration (FHA [1]) senior single family housing policy adviser Patricia McClung will be leaving the FHA Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB [2]) next month as the assistant director of mortgage markets.

Orriginally reported by the Wall Street Journal,  a spokesperson for the CFPB confirmed on Friday that McClung will be joining the organization.

In her new position with the CFPB, McClung will be monitoring the impact of rules and regulations for lending and servicing that began at the first of this year. McClung will be replacing Peter Carroll, who left to join Wells Fargo in March. Carroll had been one of the main architects for the CFPB's "qualified mortgage" standard enacted earlier this year that critics say caused all lending volumes to greatly decline.

The CFPB was formed in 2010 out of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to "make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans," according to its website. The Bureau has acted as watchdog for the mortgage lending and servicing industries, repeatedly coming down with heavy penalties on organizations that it has seen as not acting in the best interest of consumers.

Critics say the Bureau has been too tough and is overregulating the industry and have called for the Bureau to ease up on its standards; the CFPB has made only minor changes and its officials say there is still not enough being done to enforce industry standards on mortgage servicing firms. McClung, as assistant director of mortgage markets for the CFPB, will be monitoring those changes and the effect they have on consumers.

McClung previously worked at government-sponsored lender Freddie Mac for 23 years and spent a year working for the National Association of Realtors before joining the FHA. She became the second FHA officer in less than a week to announce her intended departure from the agency; earlier this week, FHA commissioner Carol Galante announced her intention to step down from her post at the end of the year.

McClung referred questions to the CFPB when reached for comment.