CFPB Requests $145 Million in Funding After Court Order

Russell T. Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has requested a $145 million transfer from the Federal Reserve to fund the agency for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. The Jan. 9 request follows a federal judge’s order that CFPB funding cannot lapse, keeping the watchdog operating while the administration seeks to shrink it.

In a report Friday (Jan. 9), The New York Times said the CFPB is funded through periodic Fed transfers and that Vought’s $145 million request — his first — would cover the quarter ending in March. The Times noted that Vought, who also runs the White House budget office, has pressed to shutter the CFPB and publicly predicted it could close “within the next two, three months,” though Congress would have to act.

The Times said U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected Vought’s claim that the Fed lacked “combined earnings” to fund the bureau, and reported that bank examinations have stopped and the full D.C. Circuit will hear an appeal next month over whether Vought can slash the workforce. It added that the request is a bit more than half of what the bureau previously needed to run a quarter.

Vought’s letter to Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell describes the request as legally required: “The Consumer Financial Protection Act requires the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to transfer each quarter an ‘amount determined by the Director to be reasonably necessary’ ‘from the combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System’ … [and] I have determined that $145,000,000.00 is the amount necessary to carry out the Bureau’s authorities for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2026.”

PYMNTS has tracked the CFPB’s disruption since February 2025, when supervision and examinations were halted and open banking implementation was thrown into uncertainty. PYMNTS later reported on Vought’s remarks about closing the agency within months. In late December, PYMNTS covered the multistate lawsuit alleging illegal defunding, followed days later by Jackson’s order requiring continued funding through an appeals-court hearing. PYMNTS has also reported on signs of a narrower CFPB agenda, including dismissed or de-prioritized matters affecting areas such as BNPL and remittance transfers.

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