The Senate approved the nomination of Paul Atkins to serve as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a partisan vote putting a deeply flawed nominee in office at a time of great market turmoil that could threaten investors, retirees and pensions, equity markets, and the broader economy.
At a time when far-right forces are literally dismantling the government, including stripping away most agencies’ regulatory and oversight capacity, further deregulation of the financial system would be a dangerous mistake that would help advance the far-right’s democracy-grab. The House and Senate Republicans are advancing so-called capital formation legislation that purports to be about helping companies raise capital but are really about undermining investor protections and exposing small investors—read people’s retirement and life savings—to the riskiest parts of the financial system.
The House Financial Services Committee today approved a massive giveaway to the cryptocurrency industry with a bill on stablecoins that lacks basic fraud and consumer safeguards and does nothing to address the corrupt crypto business deals that the Trump family is now pursuing. It also approved a bill to gut small business and farm lending transparency requirements under Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Congressional Republicans are showing their Big Tech true colors. Today, House Republicans will push to repeal a commonsense rule that requires payment apps like Cash App and PayPal to follow the same consumer protection rules as the payment apps the banks offer.
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced its withdrawal from participation in the interagency Principles for Climate-Related Financial Risk Management for Large Financial Institutions. The climate principles covered large banks with over $100 billion in assets and were released jointly in 2023 by all three federal bank regulators: the OCC, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Today, 187 community, technology, labor, civil rights, privacy, consumer, small business, and other organizations delivered a letter urging the U.S. House of Representatives to oppose a resolution to rescind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) digital payment app oversight rule.
The Trump administration’s decision to reverse an already settled lawsuit against a Chicago mortgage lender over a pattern of failing to serve Black neighborhoods and egregiously racist conduct is an unprecedented attack on the nation’s laws against discrimination in financial services, according to a new analysis from Americans for Financial Reform.
In an astounding first, the Trump-appointed leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has requested that a federal court reverse a racial discrimination settlement that the agency had previously reached with Townstone Financial, a Chicago-based mortgage lender.
Tuesday afternoon, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte sent out a flurry of orders via tweets containing photographs of documents, including rescission of its Advisory Bulletin on Climate-Related Risk Management (Climate Risk AB) and waiver of Equitable Housing Finance Plan (EHFP) requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises).
The Senate majority advanced the agenda of the nation’s biggest banks by voting for a Congressional Review Act resolution to roll back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) cap on sky-high overdraft fees. The CFPB safeguard would lower these charges at big banks from $35 to $5, saving families and service members across the nation $5 billion each year, or roughly $225 per household impacted by overdraft fees.