Richard Cordray, a former Ohio Attorney General and the CFPB's agency's current head of enforcement, is President Obama's nominee to lead the new agency July 18, 2011.

This is a big week for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Today, the President will announce his intent to nominate Richard Cordray to serve as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. On Thursday, the CFPB makes its transition from a start-up to a real, live agency with the authority to write rules and to supervise the activities of America's largest banks.

Rich will be a strong leader for this agency. He has a proven track record of fighting for families during his time as head of the CFPB enforcement division, as Attorney General of Ohio, and throughout his career. He was one of the first senior executives I recruited for the agency, and his hard work and deep commitment make it clear he can make many important contributions in leading it. Rich is smart, he is tough, and he will make a stellar Director. I am very pleased for him and very pleased for the CFPB.

The DNA of the new consumer agency is well established. Our mission is clear: No one should be tricked in any financial transaction. Prices and risks should be clear. People should be able to make apples-to-apples comparisons. Fine print should be mowed down, not used to hide nasty surprises. And, everyone -- even trillion dollar banks -- should follow the law.

We're underway. We are working through a much-simplified mortgage disclosure form. We are designing a new consumer complaint process, with the first piece coming on line this week. We have set up a strong Office of Servicemember Affairs that reaches out to military families and is already working on problems they face. And, on Thursday, we will have cops on the beat -- making our first contacts with the 111 largest financial institutions in the country so we can monitor their compliance with the law. We have hired the people and built the systems to make all this work. And, to cap it all off, we got a strong evaluation from the Inspector General last Friday about our efficient and drama-free set up period.

There's lots of good news, but make no mistake: this agency still has enemies in Washington, D.C. And they have a plan.

In May, forty-four Republican Senators wrote a letter saying that they will block anyone from serving as CFPB Director. Many of them don't like the agency or the ideas that led to its creation. They lost that fight last summer in a straight-up vote, but they say they will use a filibuster over a Director nomination to undercut the agency. Without a Director, however, the agency's authority over payday lenders, debt collectors and other non-bank financial companies can be challenged. The Republicans say that they will permit a Director only if the agency is amended to make it less independent and less likely to act.

I remain hopeful that those who want to cripple this consumer bureau will think again and remember that the financial crisis -- and the recession and job losses that it sparked -- began one lousy mortgage at a time. I also hope that when those Senators next go home, they ask their constituents how they feel about fine print, about signing contracts with terms that are incomprehensible, and about learning the true costs of a financial transaction only later when fees are piled on or interest rates are reset. I hope they will ask the people in their districts if they are opposed to an agency that is working to make prices clear or if they think budgets should be cut for an agency that is trying to make sure that trillion-dollar banks follow the law. I hope they will ask their constituents if they are opposed to the confirmation of someone who saved $2 billion for retirees, investors, and business owners as Ohio Attorney General and who has worked hard on the front lines fighting against fraudulent foreclosures and abusive lending practices.

This week is the culmination of two years of hard battles. The President put the consumer agency in his first outline of financial regulatory reform, and he never wavered in his support for it. The agency was declared dead several times, and weak versions and lousy bargains were offered again and again, but he stood fast. When he signed Dodd-Frank into law, creating the new agency, he offered me the chance to stand it up -- something for which I will always be grateful. The fights continued, and again, the President never wavered in his support. In fact, just last week he issued a veto threat if the Republicans try to move the agency's funding to the political process, and I know that in the future he won't allow opponents of reform to succeed in weakening the CFPB.

The agency has stepped out in the right direction. The work is good. But this agency needs to have its full powers right now, and that means we need Rich in place as Director. Today, I'm celebrating -- but I'm not taking my eye off those who want to cripple this agency. We got this agency by fighting, we stood it up by fighting, and, if takes more fighting to keep it strong and independent, then we can do it.

Should the price of credit be clear up front? Here at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we think the answer is yes – and we think that’s a critical part of consumer protection. We are pleased to have the chance to talk about these and other issues as we join 26 Federal agencies and partner organizations observing the annual National Consumer Protection Week.

Too many families that work hard and play by the rules are stretched to the breaking point. They have taken on debt to pay for college, a home, and other needs. The latest economic crisis is just one more blow in an increasingly dangerous economic world.

There was a time when the basic terms governing consumer financial products were pretty easy to see. But that has changed. Today, too many lenders hide complex terms among pages and pages of fine print in credit agreements, making it hard for borrowers to compare one product to two or three others.

The CFPB is working to change that. When prices and risks are clear up front, consumers can make the choices that are best for themselves and their families. In other words, we want a credit market that works for consumers.

During this week, we will be listening directly to American families, and we’ll outline our vision for protecting consumers. Richard Cordray, Assistant Director for Enforcement and the former Attorney General of Ohio, will discuss how we can partner with the states to ensure consistent enforcement of consumer financial protections across the nation. Holly Petraeus, the Director of the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs, will talk about the unique challenges facing the men and women in the armed services. And I will travel to the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC, to hear directly from families who are turning their finances around in the wake of the economic crisis.

Right now we are laying the foundation of this new consumer agency. Part of our work will be to level the playing field by making the consumer credit markets fair, transparent, and competitive – and making them work for American families. National Consumer Protection Week gives us a chance to celebrate this important work and find new ways to empower consumers across the country.

You can get involved right away by visiting our main NCPW page, or using the #NCPW tag on Twitter to talk about what you’re doing this week to become a more informed consumer. And, for more information about the new consumer bureau, please visit our “Learn About the Bureau” page.

Elizabeth Warren is an Assistant to the President and a Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Some of you are worried about long, complicated credit agreements. Some of you want to make sure we make financial education a priority. And some of you have ideas about how we can improve our website. The variety of responses has been the most encouraging part of this process: people are interested in the work the CFPB is going to do for American families, and they are willing to invest some time to speak up and tell us about it.

It turns out that these videos are pretty responsive to many of your suggestions and concerns. We’ve compiled a few of our favorites to share with you:

In this video, Marla Blow, Deputy Assistant Director for Card Markets, responds to a question about credit card terms:

Holly Petraeus, Assistant Director for Servicemember Affairs, offers important tips to servicemembers:

Rich Cordray, former Attorney General of Ohio and Assistant Director for Enforcement, talks about how CFPB will work with state attorneys general and other state regulators:

We’ve heard that these videos can be really helpful – so check them out and share them with your friends and family.

Elizabeth Warren is Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Now, everyone is hard at work setting up the new agency.  We’re in the early stages of hiring a fantastic team, and we’ve moved into some temporary office space.  There are still a lot of boxes lying around, but, from early morning until late at night, the lights are on with people working to get this new consumer bureau ready to go. 

Today, I’d like to announce the launch of our new website: ConsumerFinance.gov.

With so much going on, some people suggested that we hold off on our website until July 21 of this year, when many of the consumer bureau’s legal powers become active. Besides, by then we would have a chance to hire more staff, get more settled in, and so on.  But we wanted to launch the website now for one very important reason: it’s our first step in a conversation with you. We’ve even created this video, with the help of our friend, Ron Howard, to introduce ourselves.

For the first time in many years, we have the opportunity to create a brand new consumer agency from the ground up. We want to make sure that American families are with us all the way while we build it.

I hope that you’ll take a moment to visit our website, and that you’ll come back often to stay in touch.

Regrettably, the evidence is clear:  servicemembers and their families are sometimes easy targets for unscrupulous lenders.  Even families that stay with mainstream lenders can struggle as the impact of separation and frequent moving takes a financial toll, leaving a family mired in debt and trying to digest reams of fine print. 

Today, we have good news to report.

Holly Petraeus will take on a new role at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Implementation Team, directing our effort to establish an Office of Servicemember Affairs.

I had been at the consumer agency for only a couple of weeks when I met Holly.  After we introduced ourselves, she got straight to the point: despite strong efforts by the Department of Defense and others, too many military families find themselves in financial trouble, scrambling hard to deal with mounting debts or falling into the arms of a predatory lender. 

Holly was then serving as the Director of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Military Line, a partnership between the BBB and the Department of Defense Financial Readiness Campaign that provides consumer education and advocacy for servicemembers and their families.  She knew the challenges facing military families.  Her son, brother, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all served in our armed forces.  Her husband, General David Petraeus, is serving now as Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. 

Holly was doing her best to help by teaching financial education classes to military personnel and in other ways, but she thought that as a country we needed to do more—and she thought the new consumer agency was the way to get things done.  She listed one idea after another, focusing on better law enforcement, tighter rules, and stronger financial education.  She wanted to see action now. 

Wow, I thought.  This woman is fired up. 

It soon became clear that Holly would be the perfect person to guide the establishment of the office.  She is the kind of leader we need. 

Holly understands—from both her personal experience as a military spouse and her work at BBB—that men and women in our armed forces encounter unique financial obstacles. 

Recently-enlisted servicemembers often experience their first steady paycheck and their first opportunity to be lured into easy credit offers.  Far too many also get tangled in debt traps.  A recent online survey commissioned by the FINRA Foundation found that almost one in four of the enlisted personnel or junior NCO respondents had used a high-cost alternative borrowing method, such as a payday or auto title loan, in the previous five years.  The same survey found that mainstream credit products can also pose problems: in the previous year, 53 percent of the enlisted personnel and junior NCOs had made only the minimum payment on a credit card, and 30 percent had made a late payment.

Financial problems can be a dangerous distraction for our troops.  As Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford L. Stanley wrote last year, servicemembers “and their families are under increasing stress.  When we have asked in surveys about the causes, servicemembers responded that finances were second only behind work and career concerns and ahead of deployments, health, life events, family relationships and war/hostilities.”  Financial problems can also lead troops to lose their often essential security clearances.  For example, the Department of the Navy reported in 2007 that financial management issues accounted for 78 percent of security clearance revocations and denials for Navy personnel. 

Those who serve in the military should be able to focus on their jobs and their families without having to worry about getting trapped by abusive financial practices.  America’s national security depends on that basic premise.  As Undersecretary Stanley wrote, the “personal financial readiness of our troops and families equates to mission readiness.”  Secretary of the Army John McHugh similarly has argued that “Soldiers who are distracted by financial issues at home are not fully focused on fighting the enemy, thereby decreasing mission readiness.”

In her role at the new agency, Holly will continue her work to strengthen consumer financial protection for servicemembers.  The Office of Servicemember Affairs will work in partnership with the Department of Defense to help ensure that: military families receive the financial education they need to make the best financial decisions for them; complaints and questions from military families are monitored and responded to; and federal and state agencies coordinate their activities to improve consumer protection measures for military families.

This month, Holly and I will visit Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, where all three of my brothers took basic training.  We will hear from servicemembers and financial counselors about the unique lending circumstances and challenges facing military communities.  In this and in our later trips, we will ask many questions, listen to our troops, and apply what we learn directly to our efforts.

The goal of the new agency is to provide basic consumer protection and to be a voice for American families.  Military families have unique challenges, and now they have a unique advocate to ensure that their special concerns get the attention they deserve.

Elizabeth Warren is Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Today, I’m in California to continue conversations with families, financial industry leaders, consumer advocates, and others about the challenges and opportunities of setting up the new agency.  Over the past month, I have listened more than I have talked, and I have learned a great deal about the need for change and the places where change should come first. 

While I am in California, a new layer in the conversations will begin.  This morning, I will meet in Silicon Valley with technology industry leaders to solicit advice about building a state-of-the-art, 21st century agency that harnesses some new tools that exist in our hyper-connected and digital world.  Tonight, I will deliver a speech at the University of California, Berkeley exploring key ways that information technology might be used to propel the consumer agency forward. 

I think the tools that can be at the new agency's disposal will have at least three kinds of implications.  First, information technology can help ensure that the new agency remains a steady and reliable voice for American families. The kinds of monitoring and transparency that technology make possible can help this agency ward off industry capture.

Second, technology can be used to help the agency become an effective, high-performance institution that is able to update information, spot trends, and deliver government services twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  If we set it up right from the beginning, the agency can collect and analyze data faster and get on top of problems as they occur, not years later.  Think about how much sooner attention could have turned to foreclosure documentation (robo-signers and fake notaries) if, back in 2007 and 2008, the consumer agency had been in place to gather information and to act before the problem became a national scandal.

And third, technology can be used to expand publicly available data so that more people can analyze information, spot problems, and craft solutions.  When these data are made available – while also, of course, protecting consumer privacy, shielding personal information and protecting proprietary business information – a shared opportunity arises between the agency and people outside government to have a hand in shaping the consumer credit world. 

I never forget the central mission of the new consumer agency: to level the playing field for American families in the marketplace for consumer financial products and services.  The agency will have rule making authority and supervision powers, and it plans to use them.  But I want to explore every tool that might repair the broken consumer credit market, and technology can play a key role in creating a more resilient agency and empowering consumers to engage in their own enforcement of market norms. 

As with anything truly new, we will have to take some risks.  But building this new agency gives us a chance to create a voice for families in Washington and to change the way Americans interact with government and their expectations of what government can do for them. 

I look forward to more conversations. 

The President asked me, and I enthusiastically agreed, to serve as an Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  He has also asked me to take on the job to get the new CFPB started—right now.  The President and I are committed to the same vision on CFPB, and I am confident that I will have the tools I need to get the job done.

President Obama understands the importance of leveling the playing field again for families and creating protections that work not just for the wealthy or connected, but for every American. The new consumer bureau is based on a pretty simple idea:  people ought to be able to read their credit card and mortgage contracts and know the deal.  They shouldn’t learn about an unfair rule or practice only when it bites them—way too late for them to do anything about it.  The new law creates a chance to put a tough cop on the beat and provide real accountability and oversight of the consumer credit market.  The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over.  This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what’s going on, they will have better tools to make better choices.

If the CFPB can succeed at leveling the playing field,  we can go a long way toward repairing a gaping hole in the budgets of millions of families.  But nobody has ever thought or argued that the consumer bureau can fix everything.  Lost jobs, stagnant incomes, rising costs for college, dwindling retirement savings—there’s a lot of work to be done.

When she was 16, my grandmother, Hannie Reed, drove a wagon in the Oklahoma land rush.  Her mother had died, so she was up front with her little brothers and sisters bouncing around in the back.  When I was growing up, she talked about life on the prairie, about marrying my grandfather and making a living building one-room schoolhouses, about getting wiped out in the Great Depression.  She was hit with hard challenges throughout her life, but the moral of her stories was always the same:  she would solve her problems one at a time by pulling up her socks and getting to work.

It’s time for all of us to pull up our socks and get to work.