CFPB finalizes policy that gives companies a private channel to seek approvals of untested new products and a promise that the CFPB will not take action for consumer protection law violations
Tomorrow marks one hundred fifty days since Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger committed to quickly filling the nation’s top student loan watchdog position—a role that has been vacant for almost a year. As student debt nears $1.6 trillion and predatory practices plague the market, the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) are releasing a roundup of failures by the current CFPB Director to stand up for student loan borrowers.
“Income-share agreements are nothing more than student debt with a fancy name,” said Alexis Goldstein, Senior Policy Analyst at Americans for Financial Reform. “Financial investors hungry for yield are using ISAs to put student debt in an elaborate and confusing package, while forcing students to waive key rights and seeking to withhold the already too limited consumer protections federal student loans provide.”
“The money that is being siphoned off from earnings to increase executive bonuses doesn’t just make wealthy insiders wealthier,” said Heather Slavkin Corzo, senior fellow at Americans for Financial Reform. “It is money that could have been used to invest in making the business more competitive and pay workers living wages.”
The groups urged the agency to abandon old rules that govern stock buybacks in light of their rampant abuse by corporate America since their enactment in 1982. Last year, the massive tax cut passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump gave companies war chests of unprecedented size to boost share prices through stock buybacks.
Today, Americans for Financial Reform joined a coalition of national consumer and civil rights groups in writing to top banking regulators on the importance of preventing banks from once again issuing payday loans that trap people in a cycle of debt.
“An effective consumer financial protection agency saves families billions of dollars a year, and makes their economic lives more secure. It fights lending discrimination, and shuts down tricks and traps” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform. “Unfortunately, the evidence keeps piling up that the current leadership at the agency is focused on rolling back protections and enabling bad financial actors to rip people off. It is so important that members of Congress continue pressing the CFPB to live up to its consumer protection mandate and fulfill its basic responsibilities, as the House has in passing the Consumers First Act today.”
This decision increases risks to the public. It is just one of numerous current and proposed deregulatory changes, to both the stress tests and other prudential requirements, which are currently in process at banking regulators.
Muchos de los inversionistas de capital privado y de bienes raíces más grandes del mundo, administrando más de $1.77 billones en activos, han estado comprado comunidades de viviendas prefabricadas a un ritmo acelerado y han aumentado estrepitosamente los alquileres y otros costos, lo cual representa una nueva gran amenaza para la seguridad económica de millones de adultos mayores, personas con discapacidades, familias, e inmigrantes que necesitan viviendas de bajo costo; según reporta un nuevo informe.
Many of the largest private equity and real estate investors in the world, managing more than $1.77 trillion in assets, have bought up manufactured home communities at a rapid pace and raised rents and fees sharply, posing a dramatic new threat to the economic security of millions of seniors, people with disabilities, families, and immigrants in need of low-cost housing, according to a new report.