admin, Author at Americans for Financial Reform

AFR in the News: Trump administration strips consumer watchdog office of powers over lending discrimination (Washington Post)

“The Trump administration has stripped enforcement powers from a [CFPB] unit responsible for pursuing discrimination cases, part of a broader effort to reshape an agency it criticized as acting too aggressively… ‘These changes . . . threaten effective enforcement of civil rights laws, and increase the likelihood that people will continue to face discriminatory access and pricing as they navigate their economic lives,’ Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement.”

Letter to Regulators: AFR Calls on Federal Reserve to Strengthen Bank Stress Tests

AFR sent the below letter to the Federal Reserve commenting on a package of proposals for stress test transparency AFR Comment on Stress Test Proposal Package

AFR in the News: Democrats need to stand with working Americans vs. big banks (Washington Post)

“Under current law, banks with more than $50 billion in assets are considered ‘systemically important financial institutions’ and therefore are subject to extra scrutiny. The Senate bill would lift that threshold to $250 billion, relaxing oversight of 25 of the 38 largest banks in the country. According to Americans for Financial Reform, those banks are collectively responsible for $3.5 trillion in assets and received nearly $50 billion in bailout money during the financial crisis.”

Stop the Debt Trap Statement: Mulvaney Ends CFPB Investigation into Campaign Contributor

““When Mick Mulvaney was a member of Congress, the World Acceptance Corporation gave more campaign contributions to him than any other member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Today, as acting director of the Consumer Bureau, Mulvaney showed his gratitude by dismissing a four-year investigation into deceptive practices the company has used to trap consumers into debt. Mulvaney’s actions leave no doubt where his priorities lie – campaign friends over consumers.”

Stop the Debt Trap Statement: Mulvaney Drops Lawsuit Against Payday Lenders Charging More Than 950% Interest

“This abrupt and reckless decision by Mick Mulvaney shows the level of disdain he has toward working families. He’s giving a free pass to his past campaign contributors, and he is enabling payday lenders to get away with charging obscene triple digit interest rates in violation of state law, to people who are already struggling to make ends meet.”

Stop the Debt Trap Statement: Mulvaney, Predatory Lenders Signal Plan to Kill Payday Lending Rule

“This move shows the level of influence that payday lenders have over Mick Mulvaney, who for years received campaign contributions while a member of Congress. With today’s announcement, Mulvaney is sending an unmistakable signal that he wants to kill this common-sense regulation.” Payday loans “trap borrowers in an unaffordable cycle of debt, causing severe financial harm such as bank penalty fees, delinquency on other bills, or even bankruptcy. There is no reason to reopen the rule, and doing so shows disdain for consumer protection and low-income communities that are targeted by these debt trap loans.”

Statement to Congress: Oppose Proposals To End Independent Federal Reserve Funding

AFR sent a statement to the House Financial Services Committee regarding proposals to end independent funding for Federal Reserve bank regulation and supervision. AFR Federal Reserve Independent Funding

AFR Fact Sheet: Wall Street and the Tax Bill

The briefing paper linked below uses Penn-Wharton and IRS data to show how the financial sector is a big winner from the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with almost $250 billion in tax benefits over the next decade flowing to financial firms

AFR Statement: DeVos’s Education Departments is Predatory Companies First, Students Last

“The news of the Department’s scheme to grant only partial relief to scammed students is just one more piece of an abundance of evidence that the Trump Administration and the DeVos Department of ED care more for the proprietary institutions that break the law than they do for the students they defraud,” said Alexis Goldstein, Senior Policy Analyst at Americans for a Financial Reform. “For Secretary DeVos, it’s predatory companies first, students last.”

AFR in the News: Private Equity Cashes In On Payday Lending

“[I]t is a telling sign of just how dysfunctional the American economy has become that some of the nation’s biggest private equity firms are now heavily invested in the payday loan business and its slightly more respectable cousin, subprime installment lending. A new report from Americans for Financial Reform and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project details dozens of such arrangements involving some of the biggest names on Wall Street and the scuzziest operations on Main Street.”