We stand in solidarity with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the millions of Black people subject to racial oppression, violence, and murder at the hands of the police and of white supremacists.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) finalized two proposals that would bring much-needed transparency to the audit industry to the benefit of investors and the broader public, for example, by requiring disclosure of partner and manager involvement, workload, and other details of individual audit engagements and firm-wide metrics.
“Almost all of the money that was spent in the elections came from a handful of wealthy donors from Silicon Valley,” said [Mark] Hays, [senior policy analyst] with American for Financial Reform. “They did not come from rank-and-file voters.”
Earlier today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a proposal that brings much needed oversight and supervision to large providers of digital wallets and payment apps, also known as peer-to-peer or P2P apps.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has just gotten approval from the National Futures Association (NFA) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to become the first exchange to buy and sell commodities with and for the same customers who trade on its exchange.
AFR and consumer, community, small business, and farm advocates sent a letter to the House Oversight and Accountability urging them to oppose legislation that aims to privatize federal loan guarantee programs. This measure would be a big win for Wall Street but reduce access, raise costs, and exacerbate racial gaps in homeownership rates, small business formation, and family farm viability.
Pension funds that provide a secure retirement for workers around the country have the potential to help alleviate the nation’s housing crisis by investing directly in efforts to ease the terrible shortage of homes, according to a new report, Investing for the Common Good: How Workers’ Pensions Can Help Solve the Housing Crisis.
The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF), along with 37 labor unions, investors, and advocacy organizations, submitted a comment letter to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in support of their proposal to strengthen regulations under the Change in Bank Control Act (CBCA).
The Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund led a letter of 10 signers urging the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reject an application for a novel exchange traded fund (ETF) that would allow retail investors to invest in the $1.7 trillion private credit market. Several larger institutional investors have already taken losses in the private credit market and the letter warns how the presence of an institutional investment manager still fails to mitigate concerns around valuation, conflicts of interest, and suitability.
Following the 2024 elections, Americans for Financial Reform will redouble our commitment to build a fairer, more racially just, and more inclusive economy and society. We must stop Wall Street from writing rules of the game that concentrate wealth at the top and make life more difficult and insecure for everyone else. People — across all parties and demographics — consistently and strongly support curbing Wall Street’s corrosive control of the economy and protecting families from the predatory and extractive financial industry.
AFR joined nearly 80 environmental and public interest advocates calling on Majority Leader Schumer to prevent the consideration of deeply flawed crypto legislation being discussed in the Senate Agriculture Committee because it would worsen climate emissions. Crypto is highly energy intensive and has already buoyed fossil fuel power plants, extraction, and climate emissions.
