“Not every person who swoops in through the revolving door should be offered a top job without some serious cross-examination,” [Senator Elizabeth Warren] said in prepared remarks at an event organized by Americans for Financial Reform, the Economic Policy Institute and the Roosevelt Institute. “Qualifications matter, and Weiss doesn’t have them.”
“The activists hand-delivered protest petitions Thursday that, they said, contained 67,000 signatures. Arbitration clauses put consumers at an unfair disadvantage in disputes with their banks, the groups said… Consumer Action, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, the Other 98%, Alliance for Justice, the American Association for Justice and the National Association of Consumer Advocates helped organize the petitions.”
“Under pressure to show that it is up to the task of regulating giant Wall Street firms, the Federal Reserve issued a surprise announcement on Thursday that it would review crucial aspects of its bank supervision. The Fed asked its inspector general to look into whether top supervisors were getting the information they needed to make their decisions. The Fed also said it wanted the inspector general to determine if top officials were hearing all the opinions of Fed bank examiners.”
“The Military Lending Act [restricts] small-dollar, short-term lending practices, but lenders have found many ways around the law. The Defense Department has proposed beefing up the act… so that it applies to ‘all forms of payday loans, vehicle title loans, refund anticipation loans, deposit advance loans, installment loans, unsecured open-end lines of credit, and credit cards…’ A number of financial services industry associations believe the current proposal… takes the wrong approach… [But] the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumer Law Center and Americans for Financial Reform all support the expansion.”
“Broad consensus on the real-life harms caused by these lending products has united consumers in all 50 states and forged an unprecedented call of concern linking 467 organizations including civil rights leaders, clergy, labor, veterans, elder and consumer advocates. Pending legislation and an upcoming rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) together triggered a deluge of advocacy with a single purpose: stop the debt trap of triple-digit interest rates on a range of predatory products like payday, car title and high-cost installment loans.”
Mel Watt is being urged again to end the policy of prohibiting mortgage modifications that reduce the balance of principal. In a joint letter delivered today, more than 200 housing, community, labor, civil rights and consumer groups call on Watt to reverse the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s longstanding ban on principal reduction – a policy put in place by his predecessor.
“After the financial collapse, Congress made great strides in regulating the financial industry so that we reduce the chance of another Great Recession,” [candidate Alan] Cohn said in an email. “Ross is using his place on the House Financial Services (Committee) to undo those regulations for financial favors at the expense of the middle class.” Americans for Financial Reform, which tracks Congress members for votes on financial regulation, lists Ross as having often voted along party lines in opposition to reforms that protect consumers.
“Rep. Shelley Moore Capito wants West Virginians to know she’s a defender of community banks… Capito, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees consumer lending and finance companies, is married to a banker who has worked for Wells Fargo and Citigroup. ‘One characteristic of her bills is that they do include community banks, but they would also help much larger banks,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform…”
“When these financial predators come after them, I feel ashamed for the rest of us,” Sen. Warren tells former Rep. Patrick Murphy. She goes on to praise the Defense Department’s new Military Lending Act rules, the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs, and (responding to a comment by Murphy) Americans for Financial Reform. “Yes, they’ve been terrific.”
“There are really two elements to this story,” Marcus Stanley of Americans for Finance Reform said. “One is the internal Federal Reserve self-evaluation… that did say that Federal Reserve supervisors tended to be overly deferential to the banks that they supervise [and] tended to be reluctant to take action and reluctant to raise strong criticisms. And then… you get these tapes made by Carmen Segarra which appear to show this exact sort of deferential behavior.”