Category Archives: Statements and Press Releases

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News Release: Regulators were wrong to remove Prudential Financial from list of systemically important financial companies

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) announced that it has reversed its designation of Prudential Financial, Inc. as a systemically important financial institution (SIFI). The Council, under the leadership of Secretary Mnuchin, has now freed from Federal Reserve consolidated oversight the last of the four previously designated nonbank SIFIs.

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StoptheDebtTrap Statement: 49 Senators Tell the CFPB to Protect Service Members

“’We commend Senator Reed and his fellow senators for their leadership in protecting service members from abusive predatory lenders. Financial distress continues to be a leading factor that contributes to a lack of combat readiness and family stability for our men and women in uniform,’ said José Alcoff, payday campaign manager at Americans for Financial Reform. ‘Families and service members rely on the Consumer Bureau to ensure lenders comply with the law, and are caught if they target service members with debt trap loans.’”

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AFR Statement: Senate Banking Committee Takes Up Dangerous Securities Bills

“The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs meets today to conduct hearings on a set of bills ostensibly designed to increase access to capital. Several of these bills are part of a dangerous agenda to rollback securities markets regulations. The deregulation of private capital markets contemplated in these bills would disproportionately affect small, retail investors vis-à-vis large investors and would undermine the effective regulations and investor protections that are fundamental principles of stable and enlarging U.S. public capital markets. “

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AFR Statement: Weak SEC Proposal on Broker Standards

Statement from Marcus Stanley, policy director, Americans for Financial Reform: “The proposal we heard described today does not come close to measuring up. The standard of conduct the agency has articulated appears ambiguous at best. It doesn’t simply ban the sales quotas and other compensation practices that lead brokers to put their clients into high-fee, lower-yielding investments.”

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AFR Backgrounder: Randy Quarles Testimony and Big Bank Regulation

AFR released the document below to provide context on the Congressional testimony of Federal Reserve vice-chair for supervision Randy Quarles, and highlight several areas which we believe Congress should question him about. AFR Backgrounder on Quarles Testimony

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Statement: Consumer Groups Launch Website Tracking Mick Mulvaney’s Anti-Consumer Actions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 11, 2018 CONTACT: Carter Dougherty, carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org, (202) 251-6700 Consumer Groups Launch Website Tracking Mick Mulvaney’s Anti-Consumer Actions  WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, as Mick Mulvaney, the unlawfully appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), testifies before the House Financial

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Stop the Debt Trap Statement: By Going to Court, Predatory Lenders Aim to Keep Distressed Borrowers in Debt

“Payday lenders have spent millions lobbying for rules that would let them exploit consumers, so it’s no surprise they are launching a lawsuit against the CFPB rule, which is about the most sensible consumer protection imaginable. It would require lenders to assess a borrower’s ability to repay a loan so they don’t fall into a cycle of debt, nothing more,” said Lisa Donner, Executive Director, Americans for Financial Reform.

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Joint Statement: In Message to Congress, Mulvaney Betrays Mandate to Protect Consumers

“Like other federal regulators, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is supposed to give regular updates to Congress on the work it has done to fulfill its statutory mandate. Under Mick Mulvaney, the consumer watchdog has used its just-released semiannual report for a very different purpose: to urge Congress to take away its power to fulfill that mandate.”