Members of the Americans for Financial Reform coalition have argued that all homeowners should enjoy the same basic protections in their dealings with mortgage loan servicers. On November 20, the CFPB announced a set of proposed new rules that would bring that goal closer to
“These non-negotiable terms are one of the ways that companies rig the financial system against consumers and avoid accountability. These terms deny customers access to courts should they seek to pursue legal claims against your company and deprive your customers of important legal protections. The result is that consumers cannot practically or fairly resolve disputes with you or
seek remedies for harm caused by your wrongful conduct.”
With the new rules it proposed this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has moved to make the rapidly expanding world of prepaid and payroll cards a safer and more straightforward place. The CFPB’S proposal would limit, though not prohibit, overdraft programs that blur
Mel Watt is being urged again to end the policy of prohibiting mortgage modifications that reduce the balance of principal. In a joint letter delivered today, more than 200 housing, community, labor, civil rights and consumer groups call on Watt to reverse the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s longstanding ban on principal reduction – a policy put in place by his predecessor.
Section 953b of the Dodd-Frank Act requires banks and other large public corporations to disclose the pay of their CEOs as a multiple of the pay of their median employees. Of the 400-odd rules mandated by Dodd-Frank, this one is arguably the simplest. But CEOs have lobbied against it both at the SEC and in Congress, and four years after the law was enacted, the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to put the pay-ratio provision into effect.
In a letter to U.S. and EU trade negotiators and finance ministers, more than 50 civil society groups on both sides of the Atlantic have come together to warn that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) currently under discussion could undermine new financial regulations and potentially create significant risks to the global financial system, as well as to investors and consumers.
We urge the Department of Defense to proceed expeditiously to finalize and implement this new proposal, which would carry out the MLA’s clear intent by providing broad protection for servicemembers against loans designed to lead them into a cycle of debt. We hope to see the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau move forward with its own rulemaking process soon in this important area.
A year after the SEC proposed a rule to implement a provision of Dodd-Frank requiring companies to disclose their employee pay ratio, no rule exists. There has been an overwhelming expression of support for pay ratio disclosure, and it is time for the SEC to finalize the rule.
AFR applauds CFPB steps to bring greater fairness and transparency to the auto lending market, which they did today by hosting a field hearing focused on auto finance issues. The CFPB also announced details on a proposed rule to bring auto lenders under its oversight; a crucial step toward creating a fairer and more transparent auto lending market for consumers.
This week, with Congress’s most unproductive session in modern memory nearing an end, the House of Representatives will take up an array of measures to deregulate Wall Street – measures for which there is close to zero voter support. If all goes according to its leaders’ plans, the House will debate and approve three separate legislative packages containing dozens of proposals to reverse or impede the financial reforms adopted after the 2008 crisis, or to throw procedural roadblocks of a broader kind in the way of the already slow process of adopting financial as well as health, safety and environmental regulations.