President Barack Obama is considering nominating Raj Date, a former banker with Capital One Financial Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG, as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the process.
Date is already at the consumer bureau, working as a top deputy to Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration adviser who is setting up the new agency. He is on a short list of candidates to become director, the person said. Obama has not made a final decision on the nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, the person said. The agency is to begin formal operations on July 21, one year after Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul into law.
Date's nomination could be a way for the Obama administration to tamp down political controversy over the leadership of the consumer agency, which is one of the centerpieces of Dodd-Frank. Warren could urge her supporters to endorse his nomination; Date's industry experience has been praised by banks that would fall under the bureau's oversight.
Still, after 44 Republican senators announced last month that they wouldn't vote to approve any candidate to run the bureau without changes in its structure, the White House might have to resort to a temporary appointment during a congressional recess. Sixty of the 100 senators are effectively required to vote for a nomination due to procedural rules.
While Warren has not indicated her plans, some Democratic Party officials and supporters have urged her to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Scott Brown.
"The president is considering a number of candidates for this position, and no decisions have been made," said Jen Psaki, a White House spokeswoman. Consumer bureau spokeswoman Jennifer Howard did not comment. Date did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Date, 40, earned an engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Harvard University. He was senior vice president for corporate strategy and development at Capital One and a managing director in the financial institutions group at Deutsche Bank.
During the debate over Dodd-Frank, Date headed the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, a research group he founded.
He has served since February as the bureau's associate director for research, markets and regulation.
Warren, who helped conceive the idea of a federal agency overseeing consumer finance, has not been publicly ruled out as a candidate for director. Obama didn't nominate her last fall after then-Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who headed the Banking Committee, said she could not win confirmation.
