“‘Payday lenders are clearly watching this with bated breath,’ said José Alcoff, manager of the Stop the Debt Trap campaign at Americans for Financial Reform. ‘I think this is clearly a case where the system is getting more and more rigged, where they have, as they say, the fox in charge of the henhouse.’”
“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.”
“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.”
“[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.”
“[Director Cordray’s] departure will be ‘a huge loss,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. If Trump appoints a new director who is indifferent, or even hostile, to consumer issues, she said, ‘It will be incredibly costly to the American public.’”
“Trump and Republican lawmakers have long characterized Cordray as an enemy of the people — a bureaucrat run amok, imposing his autocratic will on gentle, kindhearted businesses that only want to compete freely and fairly for people’s patronage… ‘And people who don’t understand what the bureau does might believe that,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. ‘But if you describe the bureau’s work to people… they overwhelmingly support it.'”
“[T]he Senate cabal has masked their handout by claiming to focus on relief for small community banks… [But] the proposal ‘includes over a dozen measures that would ease rules on banks, and a few minor changes for consumers that ought to be a given,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, the main pro-regulatory advocacy group in D.C.”
“‘This vote marks a truly shameful moment in Congress,’ [AFR’s] Amanda Werner, who plays the Monopoly Man, said in a statement. ‘Just weeks after holding hearings on scandals of historic proportion, the Senate granted Equifax and Wells Fargo a Get Out of Jail Free card. Rather than pass meaningful legislation to help the 145 million Americans harmed by the data breach, a slim Republican majority chose to take away our only chance at holding financial giants accountable.’”
“The {Wells Fargo and Equifax) scandals put a human face on the practice of companies forcing customer disputes through a secret, non-judicial process… Americans for Financial Reform addressed this directly in a video featuring a woman with disabilities and a veteran, who were ripped off by Wells Fargo and then prevented from a day in court because of an arbitration clause. To pursue such cases, which typically involve small amounts of money, through arbitration, victims need to spend heavily on legal representation and hearings. As federal Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals once wrote in a ruling, ‘The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.’”
“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.'”