TORRANCE, Calif. — Rick Hackett, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)’s former point man in the auto finance industry, will deliver a keynote address at Industry Summit 2014 on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 9 a.m., event organizers confirmed this week.
Hackett spent 31 years practicing law before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau selected him in 2011 as Assistant Director to lead its Office of Installment and Liquidity Lending Markets in its research, markets and regulations division. And until his departure this past August, he helped to chart the bureau’s course into the auto finance industry and co-led the bureau’s strategy team for examination and investigation of finance sources offering dealer participation programs.
In March, Hackett officially joined Hudson Cook LLP as a partner at the firm’s Portland, Maine, office, where his practice will focus on all aspects of state and federal regulation of financial products and services.
“Rick has been on a speaking tour of sorts this year, delivering speeches at conferences geared toward auto finance sources,” said Gregory Arroyo, editor of F&I and Showroom magazine. “Industry Summit will be the former regulator’s first event geared toward dealers, so we’re very excited to have him.”
In the May edition of F&I and Showroom magazine, Arroyo goes one-on-one with the former regulator, an interview that should serve as a preview of Hackett’s address at this year’s conference. And as Arroyo discovered, the former CFPB attorney continues to defend the agency’s scrutiny of dealer participation programs. The interview also offered some clues as to how the CFPB will approach F&I product sales.
“I can’t reveal too much at this point, but I did get the feeling that if it were up to Rick, he’d still be at the bureau,” Arroyo noted. “With recent headlines regarding the bureau’s management practices, I thought I’d be hearing from a disgruntled former employee. That was not the case. Instead, I heard from a former regulator who still believes the bureau has a strong case against certain aspects of the indirect financing model.”
Hackett’s responsibilities at the CFPB included advising all divisions of the bureau with respect to market information and policy issues in the installment and specialty lending areas, including auto finance, student lending and payday lending. Before joining the bureau, he served as a partner and leader of the Banking and Financial Services Group at Pierce Atwood LLP in Boston and Portland, Maine.
Industry Summit 2014 is scheduled for Sept. 8-10 at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel. The annual event includes the new Dealer Sales & Technology track, as well as the F&I, Special Finance, Used Vehicle, and P&A Leadership tracks. For more information, visit www.industrysummit.com.
