The FDIC’s ILC rule threatens state-level consumer protections, further erodes the traditional separation between banking and commerce, and jeopardizes the safety and soundness of the financial system and the economy as a whole.
In October, AFR joined 76 other organizations to call on Secretary DeVos to extend the federal student loan suspension. We are glad that Secretary DeVos has heeded this call, extending the suspension through the end of January 2021. But we still need a long term solution. We look forward to seeing the incoming Biden administration extend the federal student loan suspension even further, ensure all federal student loan borrowers are covered, and provide crucial relief to millions by cancelling federal student debt via executive action.
The Treasury Secretary has the authority to drive an ambitious agenda for economic, racial, and climate justice, and to use financial regulation as an important tool of that work. As Yellen has herself noted in recent remarks, this moment of crisis has made it particularly clear that a new administration needs to not only undo the dangerous Trump administration deregulation of Wall Street, but also move well beyond the preceding status quo.
Kraninger should resign, but if she does not her record makes it overwhelmingly clear that the incoming administration needs to fire her as soon as President-Elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20 and replace her with an acting director who will steer the CFPB back to fulfilling its mission.
The regulator of the nation’s largest banks has finalized a rule that allows predatory lenders to do an end-run around state interest rate caps, exposing people to loans in excess of 100% APR that violate state rate limits. Merely by putting a bank’s name on the fine print of the paperwork, predatory lenders could claim that the loan is a bank loan exempt from state rate caps.
Yesterday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted a final rule that purports to limit excessive speculation in crucial commodity markets affecting the price of consumer products ranging from gasoline to bread.