Category Archives: Financial Reform News

In The News: Zombie debt – CFPB proposal could trick consumers into bringing dead debts back to life (The Washington Post)

It is “disappointing,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform. The CFPB should bar the collection of debts that have passed their statute of limitations altogether. “The whole point of statute of limitations is that the government has decided that the debt is no longer collectible,” Jun said. “If you can’t be sued on it, why are you getting mail on it?”

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Letter to Regulators: Assessing Costs and Benefits of Regulations

The AFR Education Fund wrote a letter to the FDIC regarding the analysis of costs and benefits, in which we urged the regulator not to impose a false and excessively narrow framework of “cost-benefit analysis” on their decisions. Download the letter here.

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Fact Sheet: Kraninger Lets Industry “Drive the Agenda” at CFPB

Kathleen Kraninger, the current director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told an audience of bankers at a November 2019 industry gathering that “you are really helping drive the agenda.” Unfortunately for the public and for consumer financial protection, the Kraninger agenda and the Wall Street lobby’s agenda are indeed all too similar. Since the Senate confirmed Kraninger on a party-line vote, she has steered the CFPB in an anti-consumer direction, making it easier for Wall Street and predatory lenders to rip people off and to discriminate against people of color.

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Letter to Regulators: Don’t Weaken Derivatives Risk Controls

AFR Education Fund wrote a letter to banking regulators urging them to maintain risk controls for derivatives transactions at large banks Download the letter here. January 23, 2020   RE: Margin and Capital Requirements for Covered Swaps Entities (OCC Docket ID OCC–2019– 0023; Federal Reserve

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In The News: Wall Street Venture-Fund Curbs to Be Eased in Volcker Revamp (Bloomberg)

In revising the Volcker Rule’s proprietary trading ban last year, the regulators had already relaxed one component of the limits on investment in funds, clarifying the industry’s ability to do so on behalf of clients. Backing off some of the fund restrictions will “complete the process of neutering the rule,” Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said in a criticism of the regulators’ actions last year.

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Joint Statement: CFPB Narrowing of Abusive Standards Will Protect Dishonest Businesses Instead of Cheated Consumers

While the statement purports to clarify the standard for abusiveness under the law, in fact it inserts a great deal of vagueness, and signals that the CFPB is prepared to give companies a pass when they commit abusive acts. And the Bureau plans to let companies that have used abusive practices off the hook for civil penalties and disgorgement if they acted in good faith—a standard that will be in the eye of the beholder, that will encourage ignorance of the law, and that will require the CFPB to prove a negative.

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