Ten years after the financial crisis, a majority of members of the Congress that wrapped up work in 2018 voted again and again for bills pushed by the bank lobby that endanger financial stability, undermine consumer and investor protections, and enable racial discrimination in lending. The change in control of the House and a heightened awareness of the dangers posed by these actions provide an opportunity to see what changes in the 116th Congress.
Read the full story »I spoke with Carter Dougherty of the group Americans for Financial Reform … I asked him whether this kind of tinkering would necessarily lead to another financial crisis. “No. And I would not argue that. Can you argue persuasively that [actions by Trump-appointed regulators] will make the next recession more painful than it should be? That is absolutely the case.”
“The bureau was constructed really deliberately to protect ordinary people,” says Lisa Donner, the head of Americans for Financial Reform. “He’s taken it apart — dismantled it, piece by piece, brick by brick.”
Strong majorities across parties oppose the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) proposed debt collection rule including medical debt, according to a new poll released by Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). The poll was conducted by the bipartisan team of Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting.
CFPB finalizes policy that gives companies a private channel to seek approvals of untested new products and a promise that the CFPB will not take action for consumer protection law violations
On September 10, 2019, 17 civil rights, consumer and housing advocacy organizations sent a letter to the CFPB addressing QM and urging the Bureau to take additional steps to preserve access to affordable homeownership with adequate consumer protections in place.
On September 9, 2019, 34 organizations sent a letter in support of the Overdraft Protection Act of 2019.
On September 9, 2019, AFR submitted a letter of support for HR 1643, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act to the House Judiciary Committee.
“This rule would free up hundreds of billions of dollars in securities and derivatives for proprietary trading purposes, completely outside of Volcker Rule coverage and in fact with an explicit exemption from proprietary trading restrictions,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. “By simply designating positions as not explicitly held for trading, banks could easily evade the Volcker Rule. These changes spell the end of meaningful constraints on proprietary trading at taxpayer supported banks, and another step in dismantling financial stability safeguards.”
“Kathy Kraninger has effectively committed the Bureau to aiding and abetting the debt trap by removing the most important federal consumer protection against it,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel of Americans for Financial Reform. “Every moment without federal consumer protections on these loans means more consumers are left unprotected from the devastation caused by this predatory industry. This tracker is a numerical representation of the damage her inaction is causing.”
