“The financial services industry pumped a record $2bn of campaign contributions into the political system in the two years leading up to the 2016 elections. And the flood of cash has continued, with a particular focus on senators whose votes will be decisive. The influence that money buys is creating a massive shift away from the moderate reforms made in and around Dodd-Frank, which were making the system safer and helping consumers and investors keep billions of dollars each year that an already profitable industry would otherwise siphon off.”
“Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, said he was glad to see the authority embraced in the report, but alarmed by specifics of the bankruptcy recommendations that he said ‘would create special privileges for big banks, rely on unrealistic assumptions, and in their current form would likely increase risks to the financial system.'”
“This isn’t the first drastic turnaround for the CFPB under Mulvaney. Last month, the agency canned rules that made it harder for payday lenders to make high-interest loans — and automatically pull funds — from borrowers. ‘Mick Mulvaney wants to let Equifax off the hook for its reckless abuse and negligence that may have a lasting impact on millions of Americans,’ [said] Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform.”
“‘Payday lenders are clearly watching this with bated breath,’ said José Alcoff, manager of the Stop the Debt Trap campaign at Americans for Financial Reform. ‘I think this is clearly a case where the system is getting more and more rigged, where they have, as they say, the fox in charge of the henhouse.’”
“The Trump administration has stripped enforcement powers from a [CFPB] unit responsible for pursuing discrimination cases, part of a broader effort to reshape an agency it criticized as acting too aggressively… ‘These changes . . . threaten effective enforcement of civil rights laws, and increase the likelihood that people will continue to face discriminatory access and pricing as they navigate their economic lives,’ Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement.”
“Under current law, banks with more than $50 billion in assets are considered ‘systemically important financial institutions’ and therefore are subject to extra scrutiny. The Senate bill would lift that threshold to $250 billion, relaxing oversight of 25 of the 38 largest banks in the country. According to Americans for Financial Reform, those banks are collectively responsible for $3.5 trillion in assets and received nearly $50 billion in bailout money during the financial crisis.”
