Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund sent a letter commending the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice for developing a robust, accessible update to the merger guidelines
AFREF submitted comment letters to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) on two proposals that would strengthen its toolbox for addressing threats to financial stability, including those related to climate change, and make it easier to designate nonbank companies like asset managers and insurance companies as systemically important institutions that need enhanced regulation by the Federal Reserve Board.
The letters detail how threats to financial stability from nonbank financial institutions are growing, and it encourages FSOC to quickly strengthen and finalize its proposals to be able to respond effectively and proactively to emerging risks. Many nonbank financial institutions already face heightened stress from large climate-related shocks, including several major insurers’ recent decisions to withdraw coverage from many states and zip codes. Insurance companies, asset managers, private equity firms, and other nonbank financial institutions are also creating significant risks to the financial system through their insured or financed emissions — risks that are often forced upon other financial institutions and consumers who will struggle to manage them.
View or download a PDF of the letter here Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund joined the Homes Guarantee Campaign and over 300 national, state, and local organizations to call on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to require tenant protections in order to receive federal
AFREF joined Public Citizen in a comment urging PCAOB to strengthen and swiftly finalize its proposed updated audit standards around reporting noncompliance with laws and regulations and identifying risks of material misstatement in financial statements. Climate-related accounting fraud is on the rise, and many companies are misrepresenting their financial position by underestimating their asset retirement obligations and environmental liabilities, and failing to substantiate public climate commitments in their financial statements and SEC filings.
The proposed regulatory updates from PCAOB would strengthen auditors’ responsibilities to identify and report these types of misstatements and fraud and provide a significant benefit to investors by catching costly noncompliance issues early before they harm financial performance, and to the public by deterring corporate law-breaking and noncompliance.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a comment letter, endorsed by 20 partner organizations, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)’s proposed rule on residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. The letter urges the CFPB to finalize the residential PACE rule swiftly to
AFREF, the AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and Public Citizen submitted a comment letter in support of the SEC’s proposal to modernize beneficial ownership reporting in response to a new memorandum by the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis.
The Language Access Task Force of Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) submits the following comments in strong support of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Fair Lending Oversight and Equitable Housing Finance.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a comment letter endorsed by The Greenlining Institute and Public Citizen, in response to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)’s request for information on climate-related financial risk. The letter urges the NCUA to proceed with critical next steps
AFREF joined Public Citizen in responding to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s request for comment on General Responsibilities of the Auditor in Conducting an Audit (AS 1000). We commended the PCAOB for proposing to extend an auditor’s evaluation of fairness in AS 2810 beyond
The President has made it clear: it’s time to fight consolidation, not facilitate it. In reviewing lessons learned from this most recent banking crisis to better prevent the next one, the regulators must be full-throated and clear in their affirmation that robust regulation and competition, not consolidation, will lead to a healthier, safer, and more vibrant financial system. Banks must exist to serve the needs of the American people, not the other way around – and it is regulators’ critical task to ensure so.