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.
Members of the Save Our Retirement coalition, along with a diverse collection of more than 60 consumer, retirement, and labor groups, today commended the Department of Labor (DOL) for issuing final rules designed to protect Americans from the harmful effects of conflicts of interest when financial advisers provide retirement investment advice: The rules will require all financial professionals who provide retirement investment advice to put the best interests of their clients ahead of what’s best for their own pockets. This commonsense requirement is long overdue and promises to be a major improvement over the status quo, which allows too many financial professionals and firms to offer self-serving retirement advice at the expense of workers and retirement savers.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final program of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF): Solar for All. Sixty recipients will be awarded $7 billion, with funds expected to roll out late this summer. Solar for All will create new or expand existing low-income residential and community solar programs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and territories, and open up greater access to solar for Tribes through grants and low-cost financing.
AFREF wrote a letter in opposition to the proposed Capital One Financial Corporation acquisition of Discover Financial Services, which would substantially erode competition and disadvantage consumers and merchants. The transaction would create the nation’s biggest credit card lender, one of the biggest banks, and a powerful vertically integrated payments network combined with a branch bank and credit card issuer.
AFR and partners submitted a letter to the committee urging members to vote down a series of bills and resolutions that would roll back agency rules, guidance, and authorities to address climate-related financial risk.
AFREF and allies led a letter to oppose H.J.Res.120, a bill to obstruct Financial Stability Oversight Council from carrying out its systemic risk oversight responsibilities based on its systemic risk authority mandated by Dodd Frank. The FSOC’s designation authority is essential for its ability to assess systemic risk, and where necessary, establish oversight of firms that have the potential to propagate and amplify financial shocks throughout the economy, thereby posing real risks of another financial crisis.
Ranking Member Waters announced today the passage of two key bills in response to the Silicon Valley Bank and other bank failures in 2023. These Democratic-led, bipartisan bills, passed during yesterday’s full committee markup, are “aimed at safeguarding consumers and taking steps to prevent additional bank failures following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic, and Signature Bank last year,” according to today’s announcement.
The House Financial Services Committee voted to overturn a regulation capping credit card late fees, putting a majority of its members squarely on the side of big banks that have ripped off consumers for years. The new rule, finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on March 5, would reduce the typical late fee on credit cards from $35 to $8, saving consumers $10 billion each year. For the 45 million households that pay late fees, that amounts to an annual savings of $220.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund wrote a comment supporting the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposals to require additional anti-money laundering and countering of financial terrorism (CFT) requirements for Registered Investment Advisers (RIA). We also encourage FinCEN to jointly propose rulemaking with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require the collection of beneficial ownership as well as the creation of a Customer Identification Program (CIP).
AFREF and 18 additional signatories wrote to the SEC in support of bringing much-needed disclosures to the vast market of ESG-designated products and services. The letter urges the SEC to finalize the rule titled “Enhanced Disclosures by Certain Investment Advisers and Investment Companies about Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Practices” as soon as possible and recommends changes to the way the proposed rule addresses disclosure of metrics by ESG-Focused Funds. These changes would improve the rule by generating disclosures that better reflect ESG-Focused Funds’ varied strategies and priority metrics while alleviating concerns expressed by some commenters.
In 2020, amid a global reckoning for racial justice, the largest Wall Street banks make public pledges to better serve communities of color. But their recent lawsuit to overturn the enforcement of the updated 1977 Community Reinvestment Act starkly undermines the principles they claim to champion.
