Americans for Financial Reform submitted a statement for the record to the House Financial Services Committee in response to the Committee’s June 13 hearing on digital assets, entitled, “The Future of Digital Assets: Providing Clarity for the Digital Asset Ecosystem.”
Washington, D.C. – The announcement by Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter that the Department of Justice is willing to block bank mergers even after they have been approved by their primary regulators represents a welcome sea change after decades in which government authorities waved through consolidation in this industry.
“Wall Street will face renewed scrutiny from the American public about the privileges it enjoys thanks to a political system that for far too long went along with what the industry wanted, no matter the costs to the rest of us,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform.
The Fifth Circuit’s radical and unprecedented decision in the case of CFPB vs. CFSA, if confirmed, would undermine the critical work carried out by the CFPB in protecting consumers and enforcing regulations on Wall Street and predatory lenders, according to an amicus brief filed by consumer advocates.
As the former CEOs of failed banks prepare to testify before Congress, consider the self-serving statements that bank executives, lobbyists and lawmakers uttered to grease passage of banking deregulation legislation in 2018. “SVB, like our mid-sized bank peers, does not present systemic risks,” Greg Becker, the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank insisted, about five years before federal authorities declared his bank a systemic risk.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and 12 other signers submitted a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission reiterating the need for the SEC to finalize a strong set of rules to better protect investors in private funds, which include hedge funds and private equity.
The Federal Reserve’s deregulatory and light touch approach to regulation and supervision paved the way for the bank failures that have shaken the financial system this year and that led to extraordinary government intervention to preserve financial stability. Below we suggest a set of changes the Fed can make without Congressional action that would increase financial stability and put the welfare of the public ahead of the narrow interests of big banks and Wall Street.
Alexa Philo, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, said the Fed could adopt stricter rules on its own, without relying on Congress. “It is long past time to roll back the dangerous deregulation under the last administration to the greatest extent possible, and pay close attention to the largest banks so this crisis does not worsen,” she said.
AFREF joined partner organizations to express concerns about the grave risks stablecoins pose to households and our financial system and urged the Committee to take the utmost care to not advance legislation that will increase these risks by expanding the reach of stablecoins without providing adequate protections. The letter highlights many elements that make the bill inefficient in providing adequate protections for consumers, investors, and financial markets.
Washington, D.C. — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today issued a policy statement on how it defines prohibited abusive conduct against consumers.