Financial Reform News Archives - Page 28 of 125 - Americans for Financial Reform

The House Financial Services Committee’s Latest Assault on the CFPB

Five-and-a-half years after the financial crisis, “the great majority of Americans still see a need for tougher regulation of Wall Street and the lending industry, and welcome the existence of a federal agency with a mandate to police rules of fair play in the consumer finance markets.

“At the House Financial Services Committee, however, a different view has taken hold. The big threat, many on that committee seem to believe, comes not from abusive practices in the financial industry, but from the agency that is beginning to do something about them.”

Five Years Down the Road, the CARD Act Is a Success Story

Consumer and civil rights advocates applaud the CARD Act’s success in saving Americans billions of dollars in predatory and excessive fees. By one estimate, the Act has saved consumers $12.6 billion; a recent report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau identifies nearly $4 billion annual savings in fees alone.

AFR Opposes Deregulatory Legislation in House Financial Services Committee

AFR sent a letter of opposition to a set of bills being considered before the House Financial Services Committee. These pieces of legislation would harm consumers and roll back protections put in place since the financial crisis.

AFR in the News: Lawmakers’ Push for SEC/DOL Fiduciary Collaboration a ‘Tactic,’ Consumer Groups Say

“It’s absurd to suggest that DOL should step aside to wait and see” if the SEC acts, said Barbara Roper of the CFA. Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, added that Congress’ repeated requests for collaboration between the two regulators on their rules “feels like it’s a tactic, and is not grounded in either regulatory or statutory sense.”

AFR in the News: Sheryl Garrett Scoffs at Argument Against Fiduciary Duty

“One investment adviser is sick and tired of the financial industry’s threat that mom-and-pop investors will suffer if investment-advice standards are raised,” writes Mark Schoeff of Investment News. At a media briefing in Washington hosted by the Consumer Federation of America, AARP, the AFL-CIO and Americans for Financial Reform, “Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network Inc., said that investors with low net worth can be served in a market where all financial advisers must act in their best interests.”

New from the CFPB: A Master List of Consumer Resources

In addition to taking consumer complaints (about mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank accounts, credit reporting, auto loans, debt collection, payday loans, and money transfers, among other topics), the CFPB offers a variety of additional resources for consumers seeking to learn more about their rights in the financial system.

600,000 Signatures and Counting for the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act

AFR in the News: SECURE Act Would Help You Clear up Credit-Reporting Errors

“[T]wo U.S. senators have proposed a bill that would make it easier for people to learn about and challenge [credit report] errors, as well as increase the credit reporting industry’s accountability for mistakes that go uncorrected…,” Fox Business news reports. “The bill drew praise from consumer groups, including the Consumer Federation of American, the National Consumer Law Center, Americans for Financial Reform, and Consumers Union, the poliucy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.”

AFR in the News: Why Big Banks Have to Raise $68 Billion by 2018

“We don’t believe that this is enough,” Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform told the Washington Post. “Raising $60 billion in extra capital is helpful, but it’s really not in line with the kinds of risk we saw in the financial crisis.”

Underfunding the CFTC Endangers Financial Reform

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission is one of the critical agencies in financial regulation. The Dodd-Frank Act gave the CFTC responsibility for overseeing the vast and previously unregulated financial derivatives markets that helped crash the world economy in 2008. This increase in responsibilities led to an eight-fold growth in the size of the markets that the CFTC was responsible for, yet the CFTC’s funding is completely inadequate to fulfill its new oversight responsibilities.