Washington, D.C. – The banking regulation plan outlined by the White House today is an absolutely necessary response to the financial instability triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10. But only continuing action by the president, the regulators, and Congress can achieve the changes necessary for a more equitable and stable financial system.
Washington, D.C. – The Securities Exchange Commission’s case against crypto trading platform Beaxy and its executives for operating an unregistered exchange will build out the ongoing effort by regulators to enforce laws on the books to stop harmful activities within the crypto industry, according to Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress.
Congressional Republicans have moved on to their next target for financial deregulation: Republicans in Congress and the consumer finance industry want to eliminate or hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency has provided $16 billion in restitution or cancelled debt to 192 million consumers since the agency began operation in 2010. It’s one of the few institutions, public or private, that has earned Americans’ confidence in a long time.
AFREF, the Institute for Policy Studies, Global Economy Project, and Public Citizen led a letter with 22 additional signatories to the agencies tasked with implementing section 956 of Dodd-Frank. That section tasked six agencies with promulgating regulations to prevent incentive-based executive compensation that encourages “inappropriate risk” by May 2011. Almost 12 years later, we don’t have a final rule. The letter was sent to regulators ahead of congressional hearings that will examine recent bank failures.
A successful independent investigation into the failure of the Federal Reserve to prevent the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the current banking crisis must have a broad scope and the authority to collect and make public the evidence from the probe, according to Americans for Financial Reform.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals today unanimously declared the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is constitutional, rejecting the Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling in CFPB v. CFSA and writing that it “cannot find any support” for the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Supreme Court precedent.
“Increasingly, in the past — especially after the pandemic — we’ve seen this big surge in parents who are interested in providing other activities for their kids that they weren’t able to previously do. And so, as a result of that, we’ve seen much more money from the private equity industry go into childcare,” said Andrew Park, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform.
AFR joined a letter urging appropriators to make bold new investments in the Pell Grant program.
Washington, D.C. – President Biden vetoed a misguided Congressional Review Act resolution that sought to nullify a Department of Labor rule that protects workers and their life savings.
At the behest of a bank lobby that pumps billions into the political system, Congress in 2018 relaxed laws on mid-sized banks like Silicon Valley Bank, at a time when regulators appointed by former President Trump were already eager to go easier on banks. The signal could not have been clearer, and AFR warned so at the time.