This morning, the Biden administration unveiled its annual budget, which includes a tax on households with wealth over $100 million, a 1% tax on stock buybacks, and a proposal for a three-year freeze on corporate executives selling their shares after a buyback.
WASHINGTON – More than 75 consumer, housing, civil rights, legal services, faith, community, small business, student borrower, and public interest organizations submitted a joint comment letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) concerning Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) credit products. The groups are alarmed by the lack of regulation of this credit product, which is exploding in use, and urge the CFPB to view BNPL products as credit cards covered by the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), to start supervision of this market, and to look out for practices that harm consumers.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued an important and thoughtful proposal to require mandatory climate financial risk disclosure from public companies. We look forward to commenting on ways that the proposal must be strengthened, in particular with respect to greenhouse gas emissions reporting and corporate climate-related impacts on communities.
Today, in a letter to Congress, 17 national advocacy organizations representing consumers, investors, and digital rights concerns called on the House Financial Services Committee to hold a hearing scrutinizing the steps tech giant Google (Alphabet) is taking to enter the cryptocurrency and digital assets markets, and how such moves might negatively impact privacy rights, consumer protections and safeguards against economic concentration. The call echoes concerns raised previously by advocates regarding Facebook’s designs on the financial services sector with the introduction of its now scuttled stablecoin, Libra (renamed Diem).
“The administration’s order includes the recognition that the rapid growth of digital assets as instruments for financial speculation is creating a wide range of serious risks and harms for consumers, investors, and the public at large. It is important that the order recognizes and articulates a set of these risks, and a whole of government approach can help address the scale and scope of the potential harm. It will be important for the studies authorized by the order to generate useful data and momentum for decisive regulatory action,” said Mark Hays, senior policy analyst with AFR and Demand Progress.
Today’s proposal from the Securities and Exchange Commission is a key step in bringing much-needed transparency for investors and accountability in the vast private funds market. The reforms it proposes would give pension funds that invest workers and retiree savings much more information, allowing them to better protect hard-earned dollars.
With new leadership taking the helm of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Americans for Financial Reform and more than a dozen other consumer and civil rights organizations have joined in calling for the FDIC to “stop permitting its supervised institutions to front for predatory lenders evading state interest rate limits.
In a letter addressed to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, a coalition of 97 unions, civil rights, financial, and environmental groups declared their support for Dr. Lisa Cook, Dr. Philip Jefferson, and Sarah Bloom Raskin, all nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
Today’s proposals from the Securities and Exchange Commission would shed greater light on the investments and activities of what’s now become a massive $11.5 trillion private market.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should prioritize repealing the 2019 Trump-era guidance that prevents federal regulators from properly policing institutions whose collapse would imperil the financial system.