The former head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau says he is encouraged by the Supreme Court’s decision to leave the consumer watchdog intact, despite the court’s ruling that its single director structure was unconstitutional.

“There certainly could have been worse outcomes, there could have been better outcomes,” Obama-era CFPB Director Richard Cordray told Yahoo Finance. “This was the outcome I expected.”

The agency, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, was created in the aftermath of the financial crisis and was centered around a single director that could only be removed by the president “for cause.” Chief Justice John Roberts, in an opinion of the court delivered Monday, wrote that a lone director protected from removal “is enough to render the agency’s structure unconstitutional.”

In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court severed the “for cause” provision in the Dodd-Frank law that created the agency, meaning that the president will now be able to fire the head of the CFPB at will.

Cordray was the first director in the agency’s short history and said the decision otherwise has little impact on the financial services industry that the CFPB regulates. He argues that the decision may actually bust the backlog of pending lawsuits from companies that have disputed CFPB actions on the basis of unconstitutionality.

The former director, who joined the agency via a controversial recess appointment in 2012, said the decision allows the CFPB to “go forward, free of the impediment of further constitutional challenges.”

The CFPB is novel in its power to regulate and supervise non-bank lenders that otherwise would not be covered by banking regulators like the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or the Comptroller of the Currency.

During Cordray’s time as CFPB director, the agency passed rules on limiting payday loans and expanding lender due diligence by requiring an assessment of borrowers’ ability-to-repay. His tenure at the CFPB included frequent spats with Republicans on Capitol Hill, who accused Cordray of pursuing industry-harming rulemaking beyond the CFPB’s statutory authority.

In the case of the CFPB’s 2013 efforts to discourage discriminatory auto loan practices, Congress and the White House were able to repeal the CFPB’s guidance.

Throughout its history to date, the CFPB was embroiled in the constitutionality question. The statutory puzzle reached a boiling point in 2017 when Cordray stepped down as director to pursue an ultimately failed bid for Ohio governor, leaving behind confusion over whether Cordray or President Trump had the authority to appoint an acting director.