The ability for states to enact laws governing how servicers may interact with borrowers, and the ability of state Attorneys General to file lawsuits against servicers for consumer abuses, are crucial accountability mechanisms that must continue. That the Department would attempt in any way to prevent these state level efforts to defend borrowers simply shows that under Betsy DeVos, it is servicers before students.
“Congress ought to spend its time addressing the student loan crisis, cracking down on serial lawbreakers like Wells Fargo, and ensuring companies like Equifax pay a meaningful price for massive data breeches — not deregulating the financial services industry,” said Lisa Donner, executive director, Americans for Financial Reform. “Too many Senators seem willing to ignore the lessons of the financial crisis, and what happens when we let big banks write the rules of the economy. Millions of Americans know the costs all too well and will take notice of how members vote on passage of this harmful legislation.”
Of particular concern this year is a perennial rider that has prevented scientific research into gun violence at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This research could help protect toddlers from accidentally firing a weapon, reduce gun-related suicides and help evaluate the effectiveness of public education, background checks and other commonsense measures to reduce needless injuries and deaths.
Opposition to the provisions of S. 2155, on banking supervision, on mortgage lending, and on mobile home financing is strong. And voters believe big banks still have too much influence in Congress.
It’s one more reason why it’s so important to have someone with a track record of protecting consumers running the CFPB, not someone who wants to destroy its work.
Consumer Response has essentially been an independent office housed in the Operations Division. As such, its research on consumer complaint trends has been equally available to all divisions and offices, including, for example, Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending; Research, Markets and Regulations; and Consumer Education and Engagement. Is this transfer designed to diminish the Consumer Response unit’s important role in helping all units of the agency collect and understand the ongoing complaints that consumers raise? What benefit does this transfer provide consumers and will this relocation affect the Complaint unit’s budget?
Fair Lending is a fundamentally important part of the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and of a financial system that works for families and communities. The Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity needs the authority, the resources, and the connections to key levers of change to do its job.
Charging that the single director structure — which helps make the bureau an effective consumer regulator, if that director is committed to the public interest — was unconstitutional evolved into a mainstay of attacks from Wall Street, predatory lenders, and their friends in Congress and the administration.
From tax cuts to deregulation to changes at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the first year of the Trump administration has been a boon to Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending hosted a press call today with leading experts to discuss two ongoing lawsuits concerning the CFPB director and the administration’s attempts to destroy the CFPB’s independence.