AFR joined 47 organizations in supporting the CFPB’s work to make its complaint database public and accessible by consumers. This will help consumers make more informed decisions about how to choose the best products and services for their needs, and how to protect themselves from problems.
AFR joined forty four organizations in supporting the Department of Labor efforts to update and strengthen the protections that apply when individuals receive advice about their retirement investments.
AFR’s Policy Director, Dr. Marcus Stanley, provided testimony before the Senate Banking Committee during a hearing on the examining of small depository institutions.
Americans for Financial Reform, Gina Chon of the Financial Times reports, “will soon send a letter to the agencies – it will also be circulated among lawmakers – urging them to finalise the proposal and strengthen it by not leaving implementation up to a bank’s board or management.” The article quotes AFR’s Marcus Stanley, who describes the executive-compensation provision as “one of the major pieces of unfinished business in Dodd-Frank.”
In a joint editorial, Americans for Financial Reform and the Cato Institute criticize the Federal Reserve for not properly implementing new statutory limits on emergency lending programs, to prevent their use in future bank bailouts. “It is impossible to read the proposal and see how it limits Federal Reserve discretion,” say AFR’s Marcus Stanley and Cato’s Mark Calabria. “With the exception of a few actions aimed at single institutions, it appears that the actions taken in 2008, which so angered the public would still be feasible under the proposed rule.”
Appearing before the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Credit, AFR Policy Director Marcus Stanley criticized a set of bills that would undermine current consumer protections, weaken Wall Street reforms, and put roadblocks in the way of financial regulators.