Category Archives: Financial Reform News

News Release: New Poll Shows Consumer Bureau Popular Across Party Lines

A new poll released today shows voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly back the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), financial regulation generally and a variety of new, specific consumer protections. The findings are released as the Supreme Court is poised to consider a lawsuit from payday lenders that could invalidate the CFPB’s funding mechanism, which would undermine its effectiveness.

a series of houses

News Release: HUD Guts Critical Tool For Fighting Housing Discrimination

For over 45 years, the disparate impact doctrine has allowed people to chip away at policies that have a discriminatory effect even if there is no intent to discriminate. When the need to address systemic racism is so urgent, and the costs of failing to do so are so devastating, HUD has chosen to finalize a rule that effectively dismantles this essential tool for fighting injustice.

News Release: Opportunity Zones will worsen affordable housing crisis, displace Black and Brown residents

The Opportunity Zone tax break is likely to exacerbate the affordable housing crisis and displace residents of color and lower-income residents while rewarding rich real estate investors with a lucrative tax break, according to a new report by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund,  Kansas City Tenants, and New York Communities for Change.

Report: Wall Street’s Big Opportunity: A Corporate Tax Break Masquerading as Community Development

The Opportunity Zone (O-Zone) tax break was created by the 2017 Republican tax cut legislation. It was promoted as a way to incentivize investment in economically disadvantaged areas but it is marred by poor design and flawed implementation so that it will most likely provide tax breaks for investments in already booming cities and gentrifying neighborhoods. The program incentivizes investments that aim to maximize returns in lower-income areas where residents are vulnerable to economic displacement pressures.

News Release: SEC Should Mandate Disclosures on COVID-19 Risks and Responses

The Securities and Exchange Commission should create new disclosure requirements that would allow investors to analyze how companies are acting to protect workers, prevent the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, and responsibly use any federal aid they receive, according to a letter signed by more than 98 investors, state treasurers, public interest groups, labor unions, asset managers and securities law experts.

Scary Shark in pitch black waters - Photo by Wai Siew on Unsplash

In The News: Advocates Condemn Rent-a-Bank Rule that Encourages Predatory High-Cost Loans

Consumer advocates slammed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for its final rule issued today that encourages online non-bank lenders to launder their loans through banks so they can offer high-cost triple-digit loans in states where such loans are illegal. The rules were strongly opposed by a bipartisan group of attorneys general as well as by numerous community, consumer, civil rights, faith and small business organizations, and may face legal challenges.

News Release: OCC Pursues Weakening of CRA Despite COVID-19 Impacts

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, black homeownership was already at historically low levels nationwide and the racial wealth gap was widening, leaving communities of color with far less wealth and fewer resources for emergencies. COVID-19 has been particularly devastating for African-Americans, low-income families, and immigrants, who are bearing the brunt of the resulting economic fallout as well.

In The News: How the COVID-19 Bailout Gave Wall Street a No-Lose Casino (Rolling Stone)

In place of a heartless free market of panicked investors who might want to cut their losses and sell, the plan is to simulate real buying and selling of financial products like mortgages and bonds with directed deployments of the Fed’s endless trillions. And they will be endless … Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform said, “The Fed’s perspective on this is, they want to create normalcy.” But what does “normal” mean in an economy that may be changed forever?