Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund signs onto two comment letters to the OCC about Oportun’s application for a national bank charter. The letters express several concerns about Oportun’s practices regarding debt collection, lending and Community Reinvestment Act compliance planning. They urge the OCC to condition Oportun’s charter upon substantial improvement of these practices.
Private equity has had a disastrous impact on the retail industry, driving dozens of firms into bankruptcy, shutting down tens of thousands of stores, and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund signs onto a letter from Consumer Federation of America opposing the PCAOB’s proposal to weaken auditor independence standards. The proposed rule will undermine investors’ faith in the reliability of financial disclosures, and risk the integrity of our capital markets. Furthermore, the PCAOB has abused process by adopting these changes without opportunity for public comment and hurrying the SEC approval process without justification. The undersigned urge the SEC to deny the requested rule change.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Center for Responsible Lending, National Consumer Law Center, National Fair Housing Alliance, and Student Borrower Protection Center sent a joint letter urging HUD to transition to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) and share its LIBOR transition plan as soon as possible. This transition plan should include providing direction to housing counselors about the process and a targeted outreach plan to provide borrowers and all stakeholders with timely, accurate information so that they know what to expect in the months to come.
AFREF and 47 organizations submitted comments on the CFPB’s RFI on the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Regulation B. Our comments urged the Bureau to take no action that would weaken the ECOA in any way and consider certain steps to improve and strengthen fair lending protections under ECOA to make it stronger and more effective tool for fighting credit discrimination.
AFREF and members of our LEP Task Force submitted joint comments on how to improve language access for LEP consumers in response to the CFPB’s question on limited English Proficiency as part of its RFI on the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
Letter from 26 groups to the CFPB urging the agency to strengthen protections for LEP consumers in the next part of the debt collection rule.
The November 2020 version of “Where Members of the 116th Congress Stand on Financial Reform” documents how Members voted on over thirty legislative measures concerning consumer protections, housing, Wall Street and the financial industry, from January 2019 to November 2020.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) and Main Street Alliance (MSA) respectfully urge the Small Business Administration (SBA) to maintain the information collection under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) new Loan Necessity Questionnaire for recipients and encourage the SBA to support robust supplemental disclosure requirements for PPP recipients.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund joined our partners in sending a letter signed by 83 groups opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed reorganization of its Division of Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending because it would drastically weaken the office’s authority independence, and effectiveness, and leave consumers vulnerable to harm.