Letters to Regulators: Letter in Response to the CFPB’s Inquiry into Buy Now, Pay Later
AFREF joined a letter to the CFPB in response to their inquiry into Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) credit products that are proliferating across market areas.
AFREF joined a letter to the CFPB in response to their inquiry into Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) credit products that are proliferating across market areas.
AFREF sent a comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission calling for the agency to close long-running loopholes that have enabled certain hedge funds to use swaps and derivatives to avoid disclosing large positions which in turn can lead to coordinated attacks on companies and unnecessary volatility in the underlying prices of certain companies’ stocks. The implosion of family office Archegos Capital is emblematic of such a problem as its use of certain derivatives to build over an over 10% position of a company’s outstanding shares were never revealed until after it was forced to unwind and leading Globally Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) to take over $10 billion in losses as a result.
AFREF sent a comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting the agency’s proposal to expand position disclosure requirements (via Form PF) for both hedge funds and private equity funds. Many of the disclosure exemptions were formed when both types of funds were fractions of the size they are today and would give the SEC and by extension, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) critical information to prevent the uncertainty and threats to financial stability that we saw with Long Term Capital Management in 1999 as well as the financial crises of 2008 and March 2020.
AFREF sent a letter commenting on the Security and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule to implement Section 953(a) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, relating to executive compensation for financial performance. The letter welcomes the SEC’s implementation of this important provision and makes recommendations to minimize executives’ incentives to focus on short-term shareholder returns at the expense of longer-term investments that contribute to equitable and sustainable economic growth over time.
AFREF joined the Save Our Retirement Coalition on a letter calling on the Department of Labor to expeditiously update and strengthen the rules governing retirement investment advice to help protect workers and retirees from harmful conflicts of interest.
AFREF’s Consumer Policy Counsel Elyse Hicks testified at the Education Department’s negotiated rulemaking.
AFREF sent a letter commenting on the U.S. Department of Justice’s consideration of whether to strengthen the 1995 Bank Merger Competitive Review.
AFREF joined over 100 organizations in a letter urging the Department of Education to implement Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) reforms through the creation of an IDR waiver.
AFREF and 14 allies sent a letter urging the FDIC to stop permitting its supervised institutions to front for predatory lenders evading state interest rate limits.
AFREF joined a letter opposing the online lender Figure Bank’s application for a charter.