Errol Damelin, the founder of Wonga.com, is profiled in the Financial Times.

Peer-to-peer lending?  Maybe, maybe not.  From the story: 

Peer-to-peer lending rests on the idea that traditional banking is gummed up by unfair bureaucracy. For one thing, advocates of these sites say, credit scores don’t accurately reflect a person’s ability to pay—people with low credit scores are charged too much for loans even though they may be likely to pay. (This problem has become worse after the financial crisis, when sudden job losses forced even people with high credit scores to default on their loans). There’s also a lack of competition. The only companies willing to lend to people with less-than-stellar scores are credit card firms—whose terms are punishingly variable—and payday loan centers, which charge 400 percent or more in interest on an annualized basis.

So says Treasury Secretary Geithner:

Controversial consumer watchdog Elizabeth Warren remains under consideration to run a new consumer financial protection agency, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday.

“Oh, absolutely, and she is doing an excellent job of bringing clear disclosure to Americans so they can make a better choice about how to borrow to finance a home, or how to make sure they can responsibly borrow on a credit card,” Geithner said when asked in an interview on Bloomberg TV on whether she remains on the president’s list of candidates to run the agency.

Check in with the American Banker Association’s “Dodd-Frank Tracker.”

New mortgage disclosure forms.

Never liked that analogy anyway.  From the story: 

The Obama administration has been fairly lousy about filling out positions, and there’s a lot of blame to go around, but much of the reason that, say, Elizabeth Warren is sort of a “czar” right now, is that Republicans planned to freeze her nomination for a non-lifetime role even though voters have given Democrats control of the Senate in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

Still on the charm offensive.  From the story: 

Elizabeth Warren, architect of the new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, met a luke-warm reception from community bankers during a Federal Reserve conference in Louisville on Monday.

Warren, a Harvard University professor known for her consumer advocacy, is helping to get the consumer protection agency off the ground as a special adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department. A director of the bureau has not yet been named.

Rep. Barney Frank scolds the Justice Department for wasting time cracking down on online gambling sites:

“What an incredible waste of resources,” Frank said in an interview with The Hill regarding last Friday’s crackdown, which saw the FBI and Justice Department shut down the three largest online poker sites in what appears to be the largest sting to date on illegal online gambling. 

Frank mocked the seizures as the administration “protecting the public from the scourge of inside straights,” and lamented that the Justice Department is more focused on prosecuting online poker sites than those responsible for the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown.

Not sure that the endorsement of a former Hill staff means anything, though:

Elizabeth Warren could campaign and win on a platform to “take back America” from the special interests that rule Washington, for the American people politicians were elected to serve.

If Warren runs for the Senate, she would be the pure-play candidate for change and the true heir to the Boston Tea Party. She would rally the liberal base while appealing to working-class voters, middle-class consumers, reformist independents, women unhappy with savage Republican budget cuts, military families abused by financial institutions and the poor, who are largely invisible in official Washington.

Elizabeth Warren says a single director for the CFPB will do fine.  From the story: 

Elizabeth Warren, the person in charge of preparing the new agency for a July 21 launch, said the notion of it being overseen by a five-person panel of commissioners had been discussed last summer.

“The idea of going back to try and change that piece is just designed to throw sand in the gears,” she said at a community banking conference in Louisville. Critics concerned about regulatory over-reach have called for the agency to be overseen by a bipartisan panel rather than a single director.