Category Archives: Education Fund

SEC Building

Letter to the Regulators: Letter to the SEC on Finalizing the ESG Funds Disclosures Rule to Protect Investors from Greenwashing and Other Misleading Claims

AFREF and 18 additional signatories wrote to the SEC in support of bringing much-needed disclosures to the vast market of ESG-designated products and services. The letter urges the SEC to finalize the rule titled “Enhanced Disclosures by Certain Investment Advisers and Investment Companies about Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Practices” as soon as possible and recommends changes to the way the proposed rule addresses disclosure of metrics by ESG-Focused Funds. These changes would improve the rule by generating disclosures that better reflect ESG-Focused Funds’ varied strategies and priority metrics while alleviating concerns expressed by some commenters.

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Events: Alexa Philo, AFR’s Senior Policy Analyst, Joined a Panel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee

Alexa joined the Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee on April 10 to speak to the importance of the regulators’ large bank capital proposals. She explained key parts of the proposal impacting derivatives clearing and why all participants in the commodities derivative markets, whether exchanged traded, cleared, or uncleared, should support the proposals in the interest of a stable, more resilient financial system. 

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Event: Ranking Member Waters, Professor Anat Admati and Professor Jeremy Kress debunked myths about bank capital at Admati’s book event

Americans for Financial Reform, together with Better Markets, welcomed Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics at the Stanford School of Business, together with esteemed panelist, Assistant Professor of Business Law at Michigan Ross, Jeremy Kress, to discuss the recent update to Anat’s co-authored book, The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It, which debunks myths about bank capital.

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Letters to the Regulators: Letter Urging End to Overpayments to Insurance Companies and Financial Institutions

AFR joins a sign-on letter urging the Biden Administration to end billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and financial institutions. These wasteful overpayments are causing significant challenges for Medicare’s financial sustainability. The fixes that CMS can and should undertake will help level the playing field between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, promote health equity and bring down Part B premiums for everyone with Medicare.

Letters to Congress: Letter in Opposition to H.R. 2799, the Expanding Access to Capital Act

AFREF led a sign-on letter in opposition to H.R. 2799, the Expanding Access to Capital Act of 2024, along with the 10 undersigned organizations. Fundamentally, H.R. 2799 weakens regulation of both the public markets and the private markets, making it a bad deal for investors of all types, and a boon to issuers interested in raising capital with the lowest possible degree of disclosure, compliance, accountability, and overall economic inefficiency.

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Letters to the Regulators: Letter in Support of Developing a Financial Inclusion Strategy

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) sent a letter to the Treasury Department outlining principles, scope, and direction for the department’s development of a financial inclusion strategy.  Developing a financial inclusion strategy is long-overdue and a necessary step to understand and begin to address the contributions of inequitable access to financial products and services for disadvantaged communities to the persistent racial economic inequality in the United States.

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News Release: Changes to Disclosures Will Increase Visibility in some Private Fund Activities

Washington, D.C. – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) expansions to the information collected by private funds over Form PF and Form CPO will provide both the agencies and the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) with greater visibility and early warning signs into portions of the $21 trillion private fund industry. 

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