Statements and Press Releases Archives - Page 52 of 85

AFR Statement: Wall Street Loses – The Rest of Us Win

“The omnibus government spending bill made public this morning did not include the dangerous financial deregulatory riders that Wall Street and its allies had been promoting. Financial industry lobbyists and their friends in Congress pushed hard to use this ‘must pass’ legislation to achieve a number of unrelated, unpopular, and destructive policy goals… They failed. The defeat of these proposals is a credit to the determined opposition of key leaders in the House, the Senate, and the Administration, and to the effective organizing and advocacy of groups around the country.”

AFR Statement: The Cooked-Up Controversy Over the CFPB’s Data Collection

“Repeat a preposterous story often enough, and maybe someday you’ll get a few people to believe it. That could be the theory behind the campaign to depict the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as an NSA-style spy agency and a threat to liberty.”

Joint Statement: Privacy and Consumer Groups Back CFPB’s Use of Data

“We support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) acquisition and analysis of commercial databases to help it ensure the public is fairly treated by the financial marketplace.
As leaders of consumer and privacy organizations, we agree that the CFPB needs to use the wide range of data available to financial institutions and services in order to identify best practices and necessary safeguards.”

Press Statement: Coalition Calls on Seven Major Corporations to Stop Using Forced Arbitration

“Forced arbitration clauses deny American consumers and workers of the right to hold corporations accountable. Instead of going to court, these clauses force consumer claims into private arbitration that favors the corporation. Corporations write the arbitration rules, even choosing the arbitration firm and the location for the proceeding. Forced arbitration is thus a parallel system of dispute resolution created by and for corporations and explicitly designed to protect their interests above all else.”

Press Release: Ten EU countries agree on key elements of a transaction tax

Ten euro-zone countries, including Germany and France, outlined the key points of their broad consensus on a harmonized transaction tax… ‘We are happy to see Europe moving forward on this critical financial reform and urge U.S. policymakers to follow suit,’ said Lisa Donner, Executive Director of Americans for Financial Reform. “

Press Release: Over 200,000 Petitioners Tell Congress to Reject Wall Street Policy Riders

Today, CREDO Action, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, USAction and USPIRG delivered petitions in which more than 200,000 Americans told Congress not to let the budget process be used as a vehicle for backdoor financial deregulation.

AFR Statement: Education Department Must Do More for Former Corinthian Students

“We welcome the news… that 1,312 former students of Heald College – part of predatory for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. – will finally see the debt cancellation they have long been promised. But we remain gravely concerned by the Department’s unjustifiably narrow approach to debt cancellation, which if it continues unchanged may leave hundreds of thousands of students burdened with debts foisted on them by deceptive and abusive practices.”

Joint Statement: Politicians Attempt to Shield Florida’s Predatory Payday Lenders

“In late November, a bipartisan group of members from Florida’s congressional delegation filed a bill in the House of Representatives that would exempt the state’s payday loan industry from national rules aimed at ending abusive low-dollar lending. The bill would delay implementation of any rule for two years after it was issued and then exempt not only Florida but also other states that adopt Florida’s sham regulatory model.”

Joint Statement: Wall Street, U.S. Chamber Ask Congress for Bailout from a Rulemaking That Would Hold Big Banks Accountable When They Cheat, Rip-Off Consumers

Congress must resist temptation to give in to powerful corporate lobbyists that seek to use the country’s budget process to eliminate a much-anticipated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rulemaking that would ensure consumers have access to court when cheated or ripped off, consumer advocacy groups said today. A group of industry representatives that includes the American Bankers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent letters to members of Congress this week encouraging them to add a harmful rider to the contentious spending bills that would disregard the CFPB’s multi-year, data-driven study and analysis on the use of forced arbitration clauses in the fine print of financial contracts.

AFR Statement: A Stronger Emergency Lending Rule from the Fed

“Yesterday the Federal Reserve issued its final rule on emergency lending. In response to bipartisan criticism of the 2013 proposal from, among others, Senators Elizabeth Warren and David Vitter, Representative Jeb Hensarling, and Americans for Financial Reform, the Federal Reserve has significantly modified its initial proposal.”