Last month President Obama tapped Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren is an expert on consumer bankruptcy and healthcare economics and the president has described her as “one of the country’s fiercest advocates for the middle class." She was also chairwoman of the Congressional panel in charge of guiding the U.S. bank bailout.

So what exactly does Warren’s interim role at the new agency, intended to protect consumers against unfair business practices, mean for you? Here is a rundown of Warren’s point-of-view on three major personal finance topics: 

• Mortgages: Warren has said an immediate priority for the agency is to simplify mortgage-disclosure documents so home loan obligations and paperwork can be easier for all to understand.

• Credit Cards: Warren wants to bring more clarity and transparency to the long, detailed credit card contracts she finds “chock full of surprises”. She‘s proposing creditors uniformly offer shorter, more readable agreements.

• Health Care: Warren has been critical of bare-bones coverage plans and advocated robust, comprehensive insurance as “the only real solution” for poor and middle class Americans. (In 2007, Warren coauthored a notable study showing that 62% of personal bankruptcies were due to medical bills, even though 75% of those surveyed were insured.)

A director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to be named later.