Waters to Hold Hearing on Credit Bureaus, Equifax Breach

By Melanie Waddell

News February 21, 2019 at 03:28 PM

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Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. (Photo: Bloomberg)

House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., plans to hold a hearing Tuesday on holding the credit bureaus accountable, as well as the Equifax breach.

Ed Mierzwinski, senior director of the Federal Consumer Program at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, who will testify at the hearing, told ThinkAdvisor in a Thursday phone interview that "reining in the credit bureaus is a critical consumer protection issue that the committee is holding a hearing on because the credit bureaus are imperfect gatekeepers of financial and employment opportunities."

The hearing, Mierzwinski continued, is also going to be a follow up on the Equifax breach.

"Equifax execs knew no later than late July 2017 that their failure, for several months, to close a known security breach meant that financial DNA for 148 million people could have been acquired," he said. "They didn't tell the public until early September. They still haven't been punished or held accountable."

Equifax, he added, "hasn't paid a settlement or civil penalty or changed practices."

Waters also has slated for Wednesday a hearing on diversity trends in the financial services industry. On the same day, the House Budget Committee will hold a hearing on the effects of the tax overhaul on working families.

— Check out House Passes Bill to Curb Insider Trading on ThinkAdvisor.

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