“A lobbying campaign by the securities industry threatens to water down a U.S. financial reform measure that was supposed to protect American states, towns and cities from being taken for a ride by financial advisors,” Karen Brettell of Reuters reports. Under pressure from House Republicans, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has “raised the bar for
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau won’t be on the ballot next month. Just the same, its continued vitality, if not its very existence, could turn out to rest on the election outcome, according to Janna Herron of Fox Business. “The bureau has quickly become the industry’s policeman, ordering credit card companies to pay hundreds of
Commerce Bank hiked the interest rate on Mira Tanna’s credit card to 20 percent – without telling her. Once she figured out what the bank had done, realized what happened, Tanna decided to make use of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new online complaint database, which had just gone live. “Why not try submitting a
“The Libor bid-rigging scandal is poised to more than double the losses suffered by U.S. states and localities that bought $500 billion in interest-rate swaps before the financial crisis,” according to Bloomberg News (Oct. 9). “Manipulation of the London interbank offered rate cost issuers in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market at least $6 billion, according
In a telephone press conference co-hosted by Americans for Financial Reform, investor advocates and the president of a state securities regulators’ group sharply criticized the SEC’s proposed rule to permit the mass marketing of private stock offerings. The four speakers were united in asking the SEC to scrap the proposal, “saying it is fatally flawed
Advisor One covered AFR’s strong support for a retail investor fiduciary duty in a recent Cato Institute event.