AFR in the News Archives - Page 6 of 57 - Americans for Financial Reform

AFR in the News: ‘Monopoly man’ sits behind Equifax CEO at Senate hearing (Fox News)

“A person dressed as the Monopoly Man (aka ‘Uncle Pennybags’) landed some prime real estate at a Senate banking committee hearing, seated behind Equifax CEO Richard Smith in a live-action photobombing… Amanda Werner [of Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen] walked into the committee hearing with a giant ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card for Equifax and Wells Fargo, with the statement ‘forced arbitration lets financial institutions escape accountability for wrongdoing.’”

AFR in the News: How Monopoly Man Won the Internet (NPR)

“Monopoly Man became the Internet crush of the day on Wednesday, after upstaging former Equifax CEO Richard Smith at a Senate hearing on the company’s massive data breach. The board game character, whose name is Rich Uncle Pennybags, was brought to life by Amanda Werner, an arbitration campaign manager for Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform, groups that advocate for consumer rights and protections.”

AFR in the News: Under cover of Graham-Cassidy, Senate GOP moving to gut major CFPB rule (Intercept)

“[E]xecutives for both Wells Fargo and Equifax… will testify in Senate committees next week. Both companies have used arbitration clauses in an attempt to deny consumers access to the courts… ‘This rush toward a vote in the Senate is a cynical attempt to roll back an important consumer protection before anyone gets straight answers from Equifax and Wells Fargo about the damage they’ve done to the financial lives of millions of Americans,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform.”

AFR in the News: Ex-federal officials form group to combat rollback of consumer protections in higher ed (Washington Post)

“A cadre of attorneys and policy advisers from the Obama administration is teaming up to do what they say Education Secretary Betsy DeVos seems incapable of doing: protecting students. ‘Rather than collaborating to get more relief to students who’ve fallen prey to industry scams, and to prevent future abuses, DeVos has chosen to make oversight more difficult and accountability harder to come by,’ said Alexis Goldstein, senior policy analyst at the progressive Americans for Financial Reform.”

AFR in the News: Gary Cohn is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever Wanted (The Intercept)

“No other piece of Dodd-Frank “mattered to Goldman quite like the Volcker Rule, which would protect banks’ solvency by limiting their freedom to make speculative trades with their own money. Unless Goldman could initiate what [AFR Policy Director Marcus] Stanley called the ‘complexity two-step’ — win a carve-out so a new rule wouldn’t interfere with legitimate business and then use that carve-out to render a rule toothless — Volcker would slam the door shut on the entire direction in which Blankfein and Cohn had taken Goldman.”

AFR in the News: Before its massive data breach, Equifax fought to kill a rule allowing victims to sue (LA Times)

“The regulation, issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on July 10 and scheduled to go into effect in mid-January, came under attack by Republicans in Congress ‘before the ink was even dry,’ says Amanda Werner of Americans for Financial Reform, which is fighting to retain the rule… Consumer privacy advocates hope that the Equifax debacle will remind senators of the importance of the rule. ‘We need to look at how consumers are going to be able to hold these firms accountable,’ Werner says.”

AFR in the News: Equifax breach may kill repeal of CFPB mandatory arbitration rule (American Banker)

“At least one Republican has already defected—and Crapo can only afford to lose one more… Amanda Werner, campaign manager at the consumer group Americans for Financial Reform and the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, said ‘it is pretty appalling that Equifax would exploit consumers need for identify theft protection in the wake of this crisis they created in order to avoid accountability.’”

AFR in the News: Quick Cordray Action Could Open Payday Rule to Challenge, says Hensarling (Morning Consult)

“The payday rule is seen as one of the last major Cordray-era regulatory proposals that haven’t been finalized, and consumer advocacy groups and liberal Democrats who support the CFPB have also been supportive of the rule proposal as a key measure to prevent consumers from getting mired in debt. Jose Alcoff, campaign organizer at Americans for Financial Reform, defended the bureau’s approach to the payday loans issue. ‘It’s been 29 months since the proposal was first outlined, and 15 since it was formally put to the public… We do need a rule soon to curb these abuses.’”

AFR in the News: Wells Fargo’s Testimony Left Some Feeling Shortchanged (NY Times)

“This lapse calls for new congressional hearings on Wells Fargo, according to 33 consumer groups. Led by Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen, two left-leaning consumer organizations, the groups sent a letter late Thursday to leadership of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee urging them to bring Wells Fargo executives back to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the bank’s stream of abuses.”

AFR in the News: Dodd-Frank is still here but banks have reasons to cheer Trump (Financial Times)

“Americans for Financial Reform… noted that the [Treasury] report followed recommendations from The Clearing House, a powerful trade association, in 31 out of 40 specific cases. In some instances, the language of the government and the language of the lobbyists was hard
to tell apart… ‘We’ve reached a point in this administration when big banks and private-equity funds have placed so many people in the top jobs, they hardly need to worry about lobbyists and trade associations any more,’ says Jim Lardner, a senior fellow at AFR”.