Category Archives: Financial Reform News

News Release: Payday Lenders Openly Brag That Their Contributions Lead to Regulation Rollbacks

A video obtained by consumer watchdog groups Allied Progress and Americans for Financial Reform shows payday industry executives bluntly discussing how campaign contributions to the Trump campaign has bought them access to his administration. In a recent webinar, predatory lenders reveal their plan for using campaign cash to lock in a final CFPB payday rule that enriches them at consumers’ expense.

Op-Ed: Don’t buy what Zuckerberg’s selling on Libra (American Banker)

“When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress this week, he’ll likely try to justify the launch of the Libra cryptocurrency in the face of regulatory attempts to block it. But make no mistake: This project is an effort to mint a global supercurrency — and harness power beyond government reach.” Raúl Carrillo, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Demand Progress Education Fund

AFR/CRL Poll: Early State Voters Support Continued Reform of Wall Street

Americans see the need for tough enforcement of existing rules, even after hearing opposing arguments that stress a danger in the role of government. They strongly support the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that Congress passed in response to the financial crisis, as well as additional measures to fight continuing industry abuses.

In The News: Everything Is Private Equity Now (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Heather Slavkin Corzo, senior fellow at Americans for Financial Reform and director of capital market policies at the union federation AFL-CIO. “The massive growth of private equity over the past decade means that this industry’s influence, economic and political, has mushroomed,” she says. “It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that we are all stakeholders in private equity these days, one way or another.”

A horde of toy zombies demonstrates the way the CFPB's debt collection proposal could unleash harassing calls from debt collectors trying to collect on old, invalid, "zombie" debts

AFR/CRL Poll: CFPB Debt Collection Proposal Faces Strong Bipartisan Opposition

In its proposed rule, CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger is sanctioning consumer harassment by allowing debt collectors to: call consumers seven times per debt, per week; send unlimited emails, texts, and social media messages without consumer consent; allow debt collectors to collect very old “zombie debts” where the time to sue has expired; and file baseless lawsuits by making it easier to sue the wrong consumer, for the wrong amount.