U.S. President Barack Obama has named prominent Wall Street critic, Elizabeth Warren, to found the new industry consumer watchdog that is to be created as a result of US regulatory reform for the financial industry.

The new agency will be called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Obama called Warren, who is currently a law professor at Harvard Law School, “one of the country’s fiercest advocates for the middle class”, adding that, “Long before this crisis hit, she had written eloquently, passionately, forcefully, about the growing financial pressures on working families and the need to put in place stronger consumer protections. And three years ago she came up with an idea for a new independent agency that would have one simple overriding mission: standing up for consumers and middle-class families.”

Warren proposed the idea of a new consumer watchdog, he noted, adding that he, and U.S. Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, want her to get it off the ground. She will help oversee all aspects of the bureau’s creation, from staff recruitment to setting policy, and choosing its first director, he said.

“For years financial companies have been able to spend millions of dollars on their own watchdog — lobbyists who look out for their interests and fight for their priorities. That’s their right. But from now on, consumers will also have a powerful watchdog — a tough, independent watchdog whose job it is to stand up for their financial interests, for their families’ future,” he concluded.

IE