Slideshow ( 2 images )

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has been reviewing a handful of potential nominees to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and his final pick will be named next week, a top U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The law requires Trump to formally nominate someone to lead the CFPB by the end of the month and he will keep that schedule, said Mick Mulvaney, who has led the agency on an interim basis since November.

“The permanent person is going to be named probably mid- to late next week,” Mulvaney told reporters on Tuesday.

Trump met with at least one finalist for the post in recent days, said Mulvaney, who also serves as Trump’s budget chief.

Trump’s pick will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The upper chamber is already battling a backlog of nominees, meaning Mulvaney is likely to lead the CFPB through the end of the year, he said.

The CFPB was conceived after the decade-old global financial crisis to stamp out predatory lending. But Mulvaney has said the agency has gone too far in the past, overstepping its legal mandate.

Elizabeth Warren was instrumental in the formation of the CFPB, and the U.S. senator from Massachusetts has been an outspoken critic of Mulvaney’s handling of the agency.