All posts by team

sign for the CFPB outside a building

Kraninger Lets Industry “Drive the Agenda” at CFPB Even During COVID-19 Pandemic

Kathleen Kraninger, the current director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,  told an audience of bankers at a November  2019 industry gathering that “you are really helping drive the agenda.” Unfortunately for the public and for consumer financial protection, the Kraninger agenda and the Wall Street lobby’s priorities are indeed all too similar, and that has proved true even during the COVID-19 pandemic and massive economic distress it has produced.

In The News: 10 Years After Financial Reforms, Public Wants More Regulation (Rising Up With Sonali)

It has been more than ten years since the Obama Administration signed into law the Dodd Frank Act, a set of modest financial regulations that were meant to address the causes of the Great Recession. Since then many of the regulations have been weakened and whittled down. But a new poll finds strong public support, across the political spectrum for Wall Street to be held to account.

Testimony: License to Bank – Examining the Legal Framework Governing Who Can Lend and Process Payments in the Fintech Age

What industry calls “innovation” is often easily mapped to a longstanding financial service and therefore the existing laws should apply. At the same time, certain tools and certain forms of partnerships should have no place in our economy whatsoever. Treating innovation as an unqualified good leads regulators to ignore both considerations of equity and long-term, sustainable innovation. Give the interface between powerful corporations, complex products, and the public, precaution should be the norm, as it is in food and drug regulation.

News Release: Durable Support for Tough Wall Street Rules and Mission of CFPB

Ten years after Congress passed a major reform of Wall Street in response to the financial crisis voters overwhelmingly support more and tougher regulation of finance and they strongly approve of the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And, as the decade after the 2008 crisis unfolded to reveal continuing abuses by Wall Street, and the growth of predatory financial practices, notably by private equity, the public’s appetite for additional reform has strengthened. And the results underscore the need for rigorous oversight to ensure consumers aren’t victimized by unscrupulous lending practices.

Polling Memo: Voters Support Strong Consumer Financial Protections and Tough Regulation of Wall Street

Voters across all political parties are broadly and intensely supportive of strong consumer financial protections and of tough regulation of the financial services industry. This sentiment extends not only to keeping existing measures in place but expanding on what Congress did a decade ago, and has proved durable throughout the period since the 2008 financial crisis, through the weak recovery that followed and into the searing recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.