Washington, D.C. – A new plan from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced today should save real people real money – $9 billion each year – by capping the late charges that credit card companies impose on customers. But the consumer agency also faces an existential threat that the Supreme Court may soon address.
Washington, D.C. – The announcement that Chevron will spend $75 billion on stock buybacks underscores the urgency of reinforcing a measure Congress created last year to penalize companies that engage in a financial practice that amplifies rampant wealth inequality, and in this case boosts the bottom line of a climate-harming industry.
Washington, D.C.— The Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal to prohibit conflicts of interest in securitizations, though a long time coming, will finally address the problem of Wall Street arranging bets in which financial institutions effectively rip off their own clients.
Washington, D.C. – The $3.7 billion dividend payout by Albertsons Companies at the behest of a consortium led by private equity firm Cerberus will enrich people who are already extremely wealthy at the expense of communities and workers nationwide.
The Federal Reserve pilot climate scenario analysis to spur six major U.S. banks to evaluate their climate risks represents a necessary step towards getting these financial institutions to understand their transition risks and the severe physical threats on their residential and commercial real estate portfolios. But there needs to be a more assertive approach to how megabanks manage their climate risks.
The nation’s big-bank regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, should help broaden and extend a crackdown on financial institutions that repeatedly violate the law – notably Wells Fargo – with all the tools at its disposal. Comptroller Michael Hsu is speaking on the problem of “too big to manage” today. The speech comes about a month after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Wells to pay $3.7 billion over widespread mismanagement of auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts, and promised to work with other federal regulators to find durable solutions to its constant violations of the law.
Washington, D.C. — The Federal Reserve and other banking regulators made the right call Tuesday by issuing a warning regarding the risks that crypto-assets pose to banking organizations. There is widespread volatility, fraud risk, legal uncertainties, unfair and deceptive practices, run and contagion risks, high levels of concentration and interconnections between firms, and poor risk management and governance found throughout the industry – all of which spells danger for investors and consumers alike.
Washington, D.C. – The record Consumer Financial Protection Bureau settlement with Wells Fargo over widespread wrongdoing in providing auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts represents an opportunity for all federal regulators to force durable change at the oft-penalized megabank.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island today warned that a recent court decision in the Fifth Circuit, though aimed at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, also threatens the funding stream of the Federal Reserve that underpins its independence from politics.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Private equity billionaires would be among the big winners from a corporate lobbying push in Congress to reap a windfall from a retroactive tax break in the omnibus bill now being crafted. Lobbyists and their many allies in Congress are trying to repeal new restrictions that took effect this year that limit how much corporations can deduct in interest payments on their debt.