This Week in Wall Street Reform
Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – February 18, 2012 – February 24, 2012.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
AFR in the News: A bipartisan push to bring back bank bailouts
“Advocates on the left, however, are adamant that the ban remain in place, arguing that it forces banks to put up greater collateral to back up risky bets. ‘It is a form of firewall between swaps dealing and the rest of your operations, requiring separate capitalization,’ says Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform. ‘When you allow banks to do absolutely unlimited derivatives activities, it’s hard to separate banking from speculation.'”
AFR in the News: House Panel Approves Bill to Exempt New Firms From Pay Votes
“On Feb. 16, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would exempt newly public companies from holding say-on-pay votes for five years. …Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), a coalition of consumer and investor groups that includes the AFL-CIO, has urged the Senate Banking Committee to reject the emerging company legislation. The coalition criticized the auditor attestation exemption and noted that say-on-pay votes have nothing to do with eliminating barriers to new IPOs.”
AFR in the News: Opening Up the Fed
“Fed board members and staff members apparently met with JPMorgan Chase 16 times, Bank of America 10 times, Goldman Sachs nine times, Barclays seven times and Morgan Stanley seven times (as depicted in a chart that accompanies the Wall Street Journal article). How many meetings does a single company need on one specific issue? How many would you get? For example, Americans for Financial Reform, an organization that describes itself as ‘fighting for a banking and financial system based on accountability, fairness and security,’ met with senior Federal Reserve officials only three times on the Volcker Rule.”
AFR Press Statement: CFPB Inquiry into Overdraft Practices a Welcome Step
AFR welcomes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s newly announced inquiry into overdraft fees, their impact on consumers, and in particular the Bureau’s focus on check re-ordering, and misleading or confusing marketing of so-called “standard” overdraft protection, a product deemed so abusive that regulators now require a consumer’s affirmative consent or “opt-in”.
AFR Press Statement: CFPB Makes Progress Towards Supervision of Debt Collectors and Consumer Reporting Agencies
“In issuing its proposed rule defining ‘larger participants ‘in the debt collection and consumer credit reporting markets the CFPB took an important step towards more accountability and fairness in the consumer financial marketplace.”
AFR in the News: U.S. House Panel Approves Measure Limiting Swaps ‘Push-Out’
“The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would let banks keep commodity and equity derivatives in federally-insured units by removing part of the Dodd-Frank Act’s so-called push-out rule. …Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition including the AFL-CIO labor federation as well as other unions and consumer advocacy groups, opposed changes to the push-out rule in a letter before the vote.”
This Week in Wall Street Reform
Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – February 11, 2012 – February 17, 2012.
AFR Letter: Oppose HR 2308, HR 1838, and HR 3606
AFR sent the following letter to House Financial Services Committee members, expressing concerns about three proposed bills that would undermine transparency and accountability in the financial system.
AFR in the News: Comments Flood In on Volcker Rule
The so-called Volcker Rule has broken the record for attracting the most comment letters submitted on any Dodd-Frank proposal. Regulators have received a whopping 17,000-plus comments on the proposal, a Federal Reserve spokeswoman said. …Behind this deluge is a partnership of two consumer advocacy groups that have been active in pushing back against the banks during the Dodd-Frank rule-writing process. Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform used email lists and social media such as Twitter and Facebook to recruit members and others to submit comments on the Volcker Rule.