“AFR strongly supports measures to both limit and control risks of physical commodity involvement at financial holding companies. …Specifically, we support the new consolidated limits on the total size of commodity holdings, the capital increase to 300 percent risk weights applied to commodities held under 4(k), and more…”
“With a single director at its head the CFPB is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It has recovered $12 billion for over 29 million people. The only plausible reason to change it, after nearly 6 years of good work, is to stop that good work from happening. The banks and predatory lenders who are pushing this want to be able to abuse consumers with impunity. There is no good reason to enable them.”
“The majority on the Senate Finance Committee has chosen to ignore lies and evasions, to ram through a nomination in defiance of its own procedures, and to all vote YES despite both the known facts about Steven Mnuchin’s bank’s abusive and sometimes illegal foreclosure practices, and serious unanswered questions on this and other matters. The minority on the committee did the right thing in demanding responses before a vote, every remaining Senator should demand the same before a floor vote is scheduled, and they should vote no when it comes before them. The country needs a Treasury Secretary who will stand up for the public interest, not another representative of Wall Street in government.”
“It is crucial that any nominee for Education Secretary of the Department of Education not only affirm the need to enforce existing rules that seek to protect both students and taxpayers from fraud, but also clearly articulate plans to rapidly pursue additional automatic group discharges. Betsy DeVos has done neither. Americans for Financial Reform urges the members of the Senate to reject Betsy DeVos’s nomination as Secretary of the Department of Education.”
Navient’s CEO Jack Remondi lashed out at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for daring to do its job to protect student loan borrowers from up to $4 billion in unnecessary interest charges caused by Navient’s illegal servicing practices. Remondi’s complaints are a deceptive and self-interested attempt to evade responsibility for breaking the law.
We welcome the news that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took action to protect student loan borrowers today by suing Navient for steering struggling borrowers toward paying more than they had to on their loans. The Bureau is joined by state attorneys general from Illinois and Washington, who today both filed their own lawsuits. This action makes clear why we need a strong, independent CFPB under the leadership of Director Cordray, whose work is putting billions of dollars back in the pockets of the people who earned them, rather than the coffers of companies who stole from them.
Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) applauds the news that the Department of Education will grant automatic discharges to all former students of American Career Institute (ACI) in Massachusetts. Before being confirmed, any nominee for Secretary of the Department of Education must clearly articulate plans to rapidly pursue additional automatic group discharges, to ensure that all Americans are protected from future exploitation of taxpayer-backed loans by predatory schools.
We are deeply concerned that the Investment Company Institute (ICI) Letter lays out a set of changes to the Proposed Rule which wold effectively negate the derivatives exposure limits in the rule and render them useless as a tool for controlling speculative leverage at registered funds, as is required by the 1940 Act. …This change would not simply modify the relative weighting of derivatives exposures, but would result in a massive increase in the absolute limit on derivatives risk exposure.
Americans for Financial Reform applauds the Department of Education’s final decision to de-recognize a major accreditor of for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). The Department’s decision to no longer recognize ACICS is an important step toward ensuring that students and taxpayers do not bear the burden of illegal and fraudulent acts by for-profit colleges.
Americans for Financial Reform welcomes the news that the Department of Education has taken steps to protect both students and taxpayers by cutting off federal student loan money to Globe University and the Minnesota School of Business (MSB) — two for-profit institutions where the Department found