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AFR Statement: FHFA praised for adding language preference question to mortgage form
“FHFA made a great decision,” said Amanda Jackson, AFR’s Organizing and Outreach Manager. “Knowing homeowners’ preferred language will help Fannie, Freddie, and mortgage servicers better communicate with their customers and avoid unnecessary – and sometimes devastating – confusion.”
AFR in the News: Ohio Must Reform Payday Lending (Canton Record-Courier)
“Oversight of payday loans is particularly lax in Ohio… State voters approved reforms in 2008, but the industry found ways around the restrictions on interest rates and other measures designed to protect borrowers… ‘Payday and car title lenders profit from repeatedly dragging hard-pressed people deeper and deeper into debt, and taking advantage of families when they are financially vulnerable,’ Lisa Donner, with Americans for Financial Reform, told the Associated Press. ‘Curbing the ability to push loans that borrowers clearly cannot repay is a key protection.'”
AFR Report: The Same Old Song – Wall Street’s repeatedly discredited but endlessly repeated arguments against common-sense financial regulation
A look back at the financial lobby’s robotic opposition to one proposed reform after another, and how Wall Street’s claims have squared with real-world events. This new AFR report homes in on three pre-financial-crisis case studies, involving credit cards, mortgages, and derivatives.
Letter to Congress: AFR Urges House Financial Services Committee To Reject 19 Deregulatory Bills
AFR sent the letter below to the House Financial Services Committee urging them to reject nineteen deregulatory bills. AFR Letter Re HFSC 10-11 Markup
Letter to Regulators: AFR Urges Federal Reserve to Maintain and Expand Accountability for Bank Boards of Directors
AFR sent a comment letter to the Federal Reserve Board urging them to modify proposed rules that would reduce accountability for bank Boards of Directors, and also to examine further changes that would expand such accountability AFR Response to Proposed Guidance On Boards of Directors
Letter to Regulator: AFR Opposes FDIC Insurance for Square Inc.
“ILC charters exploit a loophole in federal banking laws to gain access to the federal deposit-insurance safety net while avoiding critical federal supervision and regulation. ILCs therefore pose unique risks to the financial system… If these applications are granted, [it] will send a clear signal to the marketplace that the FDIC intends once again to approve ILC deposit insurance applications, potentially unleashing a dangerous avalanche of new applications.”
AFR Statement: New Report on Goldman Sachs and the Trump Administration
The New York investment bank has had other periods in the sun, but never before have its priorities been so hardwired into an administration in Washington. The report details Goldman’s interests in areas of public policy including financial regulation, tax cuts and infrastructure.
AFR Report: Government Sachs And The Trump Administration
Goldman Sachs-linked appointees in the Trump administration are pursuing a broad agenda of deregulation and privatization that will directly benefit the New York investment bank.
AFR in the News: Trump administration calls for rollback of financial regulations (Washington Post)
“Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, expressed concern about the report’s guidance. ‘The recommendations are “almost uniformly deregulatory.’ he said. ‘It is written pretty technically, but what they are saying is that a lot of things that were done after the crisis to try increase our safety margins and improve our risk control on derivatives they want to cut back on.’”