The U.S. Treasury Department will tackle new consumer protections before the Consumer Financial Protection Agency is up and running, including the consolidation of the current RESPA and truth-in-lending (TILA) mortgage finance disclosure forms into a single form, Neal S. Wolin, deputy secretary of the Treasury, said today.

Wolin spoke to a gathering of financial industry executives and politicians sponsored by the New England Council at Hampshire House on Beacon Hill Thursday morning.

Wolin said the Treasury would be moving quickly to simplify disclosures for credit cards, auto loans and mortgages, and would be inviting public comment on new national underwriting standards for mortgages. He said he hoped to have the RESPA and TILA consolidation done by the end of the year.

“We’re going to try to move out smartly,” said Wolin, pointing out that the act gives Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner the authority that the director of the new bureau will have, until the new director is confirmed by the Senate.

“So we’re going to move forward not only in standing up the bureau but also on the substantive issues the bureau has cognizance of,” he said. He declined to give a specific timeline, but said the Treasury Department would being working on the issues now, and not wait until the new CFPA is up and running in a year or two.

Wolin also said that Treasury has not come to a final decision on how to deal with banks that have failed to pay their TARP dividends. Treasury can take two seats on the board of an institution if it fails to pay the dividends six times.

“We’re thinking about what to do there — in some cases we have done [taken seats on the board]; whether we’ll do that across the board I suspect not,” he said.