FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 11, 2024
CONTACT: Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org
Senate Hearing Highlights CFPB Work in Protecting Consumers Against Wall Street
Lawmakers should support a strong and independent agency
Today, the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing with Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where lawmakers will hear testimony about the agency’s efforts to enforce and promote fairness, transparency, and competitiveness in the financial services that people rely on every day and hold accountable the Wall Street banks and financial predators that take advantage of vulnerable customers.
“We have safety measures to protect people from dangerous and defective cars, consumer products, and pharmaceuticals,” said Christine Chen Zinner, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “Similarly, the CFPB protects people from dangerous and predatory loans, mortgages, and other financial misconduct that can put people’s savings, homes, cars, and lifelong financial security at risk. It exemplifies the idea that the government should and can work for everyday people.”
AFR submitted a statement for the record for this hearing.
In the short 14 years since the CFPB’s creation, the Bureau has already obtained over $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people, collected $5 billion in civil money penalties for misconduct and wrongdoing, returned $363 million back to servicemembers and veterans through 39 public enforcement actions, and ordered $100 million in redress for harmed student borrowers and put an end to Navient’s abusive and illegal actions. Families have saved billions more from safeguards the CFPB has put in place to prevent unfair, excessively expensive, and deceptive practices.
The agency continues to crack down on junk fees, with a proposal to rein in excessive overdraft fees that could save consumers $3.5 billion annually. Additionally, the agency has proposed measures that will protect 15 million people with unfairly lowered credit scores due to medical debt, as well as proposals that keep our financial data safe and make it easier for consumers to switch financial service providers. The recently finalized Big Tech Larger Participants rule will also bring much needed oversight and supervision to nonbank fintech providers such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
The financial industry has attacked the CFPB — aiming to dismantle or defang the agency — precisely because it has been so effective in protecting people from abusive and unfair financial predation. Powerful banks and Wall Street interests have continued to try and stop these proposals, including through litigation in the industry-friendly 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has halted the credit card late fees rule that would have saved consumers $10 billion every year.
“Wall Street, predatory lenders, and Big Tech all want to shut down the CFPB for no other reason than it harms their bottom lines by standing up for consumers,” said Amanda Jackson, consumer campaigns director at the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “The CFPB has broad, bipartisan support for standing up for people instead of the special interests and we will continue fighting hard to keep the CFPB strong and independent.”
Click here for a list of what the CFPB is doing to protect consumers.
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