Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund signs onto two comment letters to the OCC about Oportun’s application for a national bank charter. The letters express several concerns about Oportun’s practices regarding debt collection, lending and Community Reinvestment Act compliance planning. They urge the OCC to condition Oportun’s charter upon substantial improvement of these practices.
We urge you to nominate an SEC Chair who is committed to restoring corporate accountability and rebuilding robust, transparent public markets. Our country needs an SEC that will challenge powerful interests on Wall Street to better promote inclusive economic growth, while also protecting main street investors, pension plan participants, workers, and the communities in which we live.
American families and businesses need an economic response from Congress and the administration that provides real job-creating stimulus, and not just another deregulatory handout to powerful financial interests.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund signs onto a letter from Consumer Federation of America opposing the PCAOB’s proposal to weaken auditor independence standards. The proposed rule will undermine investors’ faith in the reliability of financial disclosures, and risk the integrity of our capital markets. Furthermore, the PCAOB has abused process by adopting these changes without opportunity for public comment and hurrying the SEC approval process without justification. The undersigned urge the SEC to deny the requested rule change.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Center for Responsible Lending, National Consumer Law Center, National Fair Housing Alliance, and Student Borrower Protection Center sent a joint letter urging HUD to transition to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) and share its LIBOR transition plan as soon as possible. This transition plan should include providing direction to housing counselors about the process and a targeted outreach plan to provide borrowers and all stakeholders with timely, accurate information so that they know what to expect in the months to come.
The Americans for Financial Reform and the undersigned consumer, civil rights, community and faith- based organizations oppose the Bureau’s plans to engage in payday loan disclosure testing. We do so in the broader context of the Bureau’s having repealed much-needed substantive ability-to-repay protections without basis and in light of the overwhelming evidence that disclosures will not protect consumers from the harms associated with payday lenders’ practice of making payday loans without reasonable ability-to-repay determinations. New disclosures would only provide a false veneer of protections that payday lenders would use to bolster their opposition to meaningful consumer protections against unaffordable loans.