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Tom Feltner, associate director of consumer policy at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said a bank charter carries a responsibility to serve the public safely and fairly. He urged regulators to scrutinize other companies seeking access to the banking system, including those involved in buy now, pay later services and cryptocurrency.

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Defend American Jobs, a crypto-backed political group, spent more than $55 million supporting Republican Jon Husted and opposing Sherrod Brown in Ohio between Sept. 21 and Oct. 26, according to Americans for Financial Reform.

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Political action committees backed by the cryptocurrency industry have spent more than $60 million on ads and messaging in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, supporting Republican Sen. Jon Husted and opposing Democrat Sherrod Brown, according to an analysis released Nov. 2 by Americans for Financial Reform.

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“Whether you are a homeowner or a renter, we’re all paying for living under the increased risks of climate change,” said Caroline Nagy, the associate director of housing policy at Americans for Financial Reform.

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Progressive groups like Americans for Financial Reform, which has the ear of Democrats, are gearing up for a campaign to show private equity’s outsized role in the data center build-out.

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“It is adding new debt that’s invisible to other creditors and is driving the total amount of debt people carry.” Tom Feltner associate director of consumer policy at the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.

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It’s been one year since the Securities and Exchange Commission radically changed its policy to allow forced shareholder arbitration clauses in initial public offering filings, but more than 99% of companies coming to market have rejected them.

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The report, produced by Open Markets Institute and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, warns that Big Tech companies are using increasingly risky debt-fueled financing methods to keep plowing money into AI infrastructure, which has resulted in global stock markets growing overvalued to “a historic degree.”

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Republican, Democratic, and independent voters alike express overwhelming support for the consumer bureau in a new poll, conducted among likely midterm voters by the bipartisan polling team of Chesapeake Beach Consulting and Lake Research Partners on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending. The bureau’s broad popularity has been consistent over the past decade.

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Tom Feltner, deputy director for consumer protection policy at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said the risk lies not only in fees for a single transaction but also in using several financial apps at the same time. This, he said, may increase the risk of late payments. According to CFPB data for 2025, more than 60% of users of “buy now, pay later” services simultaneously had several such loans.

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“There have been a number of federal regulatory decisions and decisions made by private actors like index funds or private equity firms that are shifting the risks of the AI bubble, the downside risks, from wealthy insiders to working people,” Maya Jenkins, senior policy analyst for special projects at AFR, told MM.

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Mark Hays, who specializes in cryptocurrency and financial technology for the nonprofits Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress, put it this way: “They just want to become your bank, your broker, and everything else under one roof — but without the same rules those entities have to agree to because we spent 100 years trying to keep them under regulatory check.”

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“This is different,” said Mark Hays, associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology with Americans for Financial Reform. “They’re not defending French Hill to show their power. They’re defending French Hill to keep from losing a previous champion, and that’s a more defensive posture as opposed to an offensive posture.”

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“Dropping millions in a Senate race like in Ohio is increasingly a political liability,” said Mark Hays with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress. “Voters are right: crypto shouldn’t be trying to use political money to buy whatever policy they like.”

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“Crypto wants to position itself as a political kingmaker — spending heavily and making sure lawmakers know it,” said Dustin Duong, a researcher at Americans for Financial Reform who has analyzed crypto and AI political spending this election cycle. “But much of that money has gone to candidates already well-positioned to win.”

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In April, Americans for Financial Reform’s Education Fund released a study stating that the bank’s mortgage rejection rates for minorities in Charlotte and North Carolina far outpaced those of white applicants.

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Aditi Sen, the managing director of campaigns at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF), brought up ties to structural racism dating back centuries. “Conditions in this sector have been abhorrent, both for caregivers and patients.”

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Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said continued financing of fossil fuel expansion increases risks to the public and the financial system.

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“Major US banks’ ongoing finance for fossil fuel expansion is driving worsening climate change and putting the entire financial system and public at risk,” said Alex Martin, Climate Finance Policy Director at Americans for Financial Reform.“The Fossil Free Finance Act would recognize the role that fossil fuel finance plays in driving climate-related financial risk, and require banks to develop climate action plans that address those risks, creating a critical safeguard for the public and the financial system.”

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. A July poll commissioned by Americans for Financial Reform found that a 65 percent majority agreed with the statement, “We need guard rails for Wall Street firms like private equity because otherwise they maximize short term profits for themselves, cut jobs, and reduce the quality of products and services.”

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“AI companies and their executives are threatening working people’s health, safety, and pocketbooks in their reckless race for profits. Congresswoman Jayapal’s National AI Charter framework would take on these threats in a comprehensive way by putting the public interest first and making the existence of AI firms contingent on their compliance with strong safety and privacy requirements alongside worker, consumer, and investor protections,” said Maya Jenkins, Senior Policy Analyst, Americans for Financial Reform.

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“Private equity has gotten away with a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose business model for far too long. They take control of businesses, bury them in debt, strip out assets, fees, and dividends, and walk away richer, while workers lose their jobs, consumers pay more and communities lose essential businesses and services,” Americans for Financial Reform Senior Policy Analyst Oscar Valdés Viera said. “The Stop Wall Street Looting Act would break this business model and make private equity firms answer for the risks they create and the damage they leave behind.”

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Critics, including Americans for Financial Reform, have pointed to a concentrated donor base doing most of the heavy lifting, a16z’s network alone accounts for tens of millions of the total, campaign ads that frequently have nothing to do with crypto policy at all, and outright losses despite heavy spending, like the $10.4 million Fairshake spent against Julia Stratton in an Illinois primary that she won anyway.

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My request was prompted by the recently released 2026 Private Equity Climate Risks Scorecard & Report, produced by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, and Global Energy Monitor.

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The analysis by Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund examines draft regulations under Senate Bill 253.

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“Private equity has gotten away with a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose business model for far too long. They take control of businesses, bury them in debt, strip out assets, fees, and dividends, and walk away richer, while workers lose their jobs, consumers pay more, and communities lose essential businesses and services. Families are already struggling to afford basic needs—the last thing they need is more of the economy organized around Wall Street extraction,” said Oscar Valdés Viera, Americans for Financial Reform Senior Policy Analyst. “The Stop Wall Street Looting Act would break this business model and make private equity firms answer for…

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The Consumer Federation of America and Americans for Financial Reform asserted at the time that the bill lacked adequate investor protections. They also said the legislation is unnecessary because the PCAOB already has the ability to tailor audit requirements based on firm size.

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The report, from the nonprofit Private Equity Climate Risks Consortium, estimated that the oil fields, pipeline networks, power plants and data centers owned by just 20 private equity firms emit the equivalent of 1.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year.

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The Private Equity Climate Risks Consortium analysed the top 20 private equity firms invested in global energy infrastructure. It found that the firms owned 15,000 miles of pipelines, 124 GW of power generation capacity across 370 fossil fuel-powered plants and hundreds of oil and gas fields, The Guardian reports.

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The analysis of the top 20 private equity firms invested in global energy infrastructure was conducted by the Private Equity Climate Risks Consortium. It found that the firms owned 15,000 miles of pipelines, 124GW of power generation capacity across 370 fossil fuel-powered plants and hundreds of oil and gas fields.

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But Mark Hays, the associate director of crypto and fintech policy at Americans for Financial Reform, said these changes were mostly “window dressing.”

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Private equity firms control a growing share of the world’s fossil fuel infrastructure, a report from the Private Equity Climate Risks Consortium concludes, though it noted that returns for those funds have significantly underperformed the market over the past two decades.

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As written, the bill “would fail to rein in the most obvious examples of Trump’s self-enrichment from crypto ventures, and, with passage, could supercharge it,” says Mark Hays, who leads crypto policy at Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress Action.

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However, more than 50 consumer, labor, community, and civil rights groups sent a letter to the committee last week opposing the bill, writing that it would “complete the attack on the CFPB already underway to devastating effect” by Congress and the Trump administration.

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The riskiest consequence, according to watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform, would be to exempt those companies from more thorough independent audits to help ensure that the financial statements companies provide to investors and the SEC are accurate.

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Mark Hays, associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress, said the administration’s push for platforms like Hyperliquid “has a checkered history” and can lead to financial instability.

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Oscar Valdés Viera, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, which has advocated for closing the loophole, likens the carry to a performance incentive: “If a lawyer gets a bonus, if you get a bonus at your job, you pay in the tax bracket that is appropriate for your level of income—you don’t get a preferential treatment of that; we think it should be the same for fund managers.”

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The riskiest consequence, according to watchdogs like Americans for Financial Reform, would be to exempt those companies from more thorough independent audits to help ensure that the financial statements companies provide to investors and the S.E.C. are accurate.

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Caroline Nagy, the associate director of housing policy for Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said it is typical for owners to create limited liability companies for each property. This can make it difficult for residents to know who to hold responsible when there is a problem.

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“That’s the ballgame here,” said Oscar Valdés Viera, senior policy analyst for capital markets with Americans for Financial Reform. “This is all about freeing capital to be returned to their shareholders.”

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Mark Hays, associate director for crypto and fintech at Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress, is an opponent of the bill. The delay is both good and bad for his side, he said. “It signals a more difficult path [for the bill], but the door is left open for some sort of Hail Mary passage when the Senate returns,” Hays said.

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Patrick Woodall, managing director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said Friday that “[g]ranting a bank charter to the First Family’s crypto firm poses unprecedented risks because it creates insurmountable conflicts of interest — starting with the OCC’s inability to reject the WLF charter application.”

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“Granting a bank charter to the First Family’s crypto firm poses unprecedented risks because it creates insurmountable conflicts of interest,” Patrick Woodall, managing director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said in a statement. “The Trump OCC cannot credibly or impartially supervise or examine the Trump family crypto bank, make sure it operates safely and soundly, maintain adequate reserves for the Trump stablecoin or protect customers from unfair or deceptive practices.”

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Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, a consumer nonprofit lobbying group, published a statement opposing the conditional approval Friday evening “because WLF Trust will not fulfill the fiduciary requirement for trust bank charters, based on WLF’s business relationships with convicted money-launderers (some subsequently pardoned by Trump) and foreign investors.”

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The advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform drafted the form letter that Bergson signed and worked with partner groups to disseminate it, said Ericka Taylor, the organization’s co-executive director. She said she was unsurprised by the scale of the response.

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Consumer advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform echoed that concern, stating that mortgage escrow accounts hold significant non-interest-bearing balances and warning that preemption grants national banks immunity from state protections while accelerating banking consolidation, according to a statement from Americans for Financial Reform.

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“There are more [Democrats] saying, ‘We don’t have to just accept the industry narrative here. We can talk about the very good reasons why these practices are anathema to politicians who are standing up to corruption.,’” Hays told the Prospect.

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“It’s a huge package,” Oscar Valdés Viera, senior policy analyst for private equity and capital markets at Americans for Financial Reform, a group opposed to the bill, said by phone. “Basically it lets big banks take big risks and operate with higher levels of debt and with higher leverage,” Valdés Viera said. “It’s all being done under the disguise of relief for community banks.”

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Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, noted that many investors spoke up in favor of the disclosure rules when they were first proposed because they saw climate risk assessment as a valuable information to have before making major financial decisions.

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Mark Hays, associate director for crypto and financial technology at the Americans for Financial Reform advocacy group, said the real test for Democrats and their messaging will be where they eventually land on the bill.

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Southern Towers is a 2,346-unit complex in Alexandria, Virginia. Most of its tenants are Black and foreign-born, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa. Los Angeles–based private equity firm CIM Group acquired Southern Towers in September 2020 for $506 million, one of the largest multifamily deals nationally of the year.

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Maya Jenkins is a senior policy analyst with Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. They are authors of a forthcoming report on the potential economic and policy consequences of the AI bubble bursting.

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No matter what’s in the legislation, the bill is meaningless if it leaves enforcement to Trump’s own administration, said Mark Hays, the associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology at Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress.

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Millions of working people keep their hard-earned money in low-cost index funds to secure a dignified retirement and meet other financial goals.

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“The CFPB was created in the wake of one of the worst financial crises in our nation’s history,” Feltner stated, referring to the establishment of the bureau in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act after the 2008 financial crisis.

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“Russell Vought’s first, and likely last, appearance as acting director comes at a critical moment,” said Tom Feltner, associate director of consumer policy at Americans for Financial Reform. “While Vought will likely try to square his public calls to shut down the agency with his recent actions to prove to the court there is nothing to see, he cannot have it both ways.”

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The Center for Responsible Lending and Americans for Financial Reform’s poll comes just one day before Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought is set to hit Capitol Hill for two days of testimony.

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“If the bill passed, you would probably see a bump for the industry,” said Mark Hays, the associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology at Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress. “So much of crypto rides on sentiment, and if the bill were passed and signed into law, you would likely see an increase in prices just based on that sentiment alone.”

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“What we see is the [crypto] industry putting a tremendous amount of pressure on politicians in election year to come up with either a bill that locks in the kinds of regulatory changes they would like to see, or failing that, of a vote that sort of they might call it an accountability vote that makes it clear who who is loyal to crypto and who is not,” said Mark Hays, an associate director at Americans for Financial Reform. “It’s going to be up to the Democrats to decide whether they truly name the red line, or whether they’re going…

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During an event held by Americans for Financial Reform, The case’s prosecutor, Thomas Binger, said that prosecutors are struggling against criminals who use cryptocurrency’s anonymity to move illicit funds beyond their reach.

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“The public is hungry for wealthy executives to be held accountable for the harm their self-serving risk-taking has caused,” said Natalia Renta, Esq., Associate Director of Corporate Governance & Power, Americans for Financial Reform. “By setting aside a significant portion of pay that executives could lose in cases of failure of their financial institution or fines levied for wrongdoing, the Bank Failure Accountability Act would create a structure for ensuring accountability—and disincentivize some of the worst behavior as a result.”

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“The question for Congress is, are you going to focus on key priorities and use your limited remaining time to get that done, or are we going to focus on this sort of niche issue being driven by some wealthy interests that if done poorly could have really longstanding impacts on the financial system without real benefits,” he added.

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“Stablecoin, despite their name, haven’t proven to be all that stable,” explains Mark Hays, the associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology at Americans for Financial Reform.

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“We’re very concerned that in just a few trading days [SpaceX stock] is poised to end up in people’s 401ks,” said Natalia Renta, associate director for corporate governance and power at non-profit Americans for Financial Reform.

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“The scene is set for wealthy early investors to cash out while leaving retirement savers holding the bag,” said Natalia Renta, associate director of corporate governance and power at Americans for Financial Reform, a group that helped organize the demonstration.

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Natalia Renta, associate director of corporate governance and power at the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, told me that not only does SpaceX’s lack of profit concern her, but it’s the amount of total control Musk has over the company and the lack of accountability to shareholders.

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Americans for Financial Reform, a progressive nonprofit, slammed Bankman-Fried’s pardon request Monday as “one more striking indication of the level of impunity that crypto industry figures expect from the President.”

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“Opening 401ks to these products risks turning workers’ retirement savings into a Ponzi-like scheme that throws a lifeline to an industry scrambling for fresh cash,” Oscar Valdés Viera, a senior policy analyst at consumer advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement.

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“This proposal would use 401(k)s to bail out a struggling industry and advance the administration’s push to embed crypto deeper into the financial system,” Valdés Viera explained.

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Progressive groups have called on lawmakers to address these concerns. A group of organizations including Americans for Financial Reform, Demand Progress Action, Indivisible and Public Citizen wrote a letter on May 8.

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The housing market is an area of the economy well known for divergent outcomes for Black and White Americans. Recently, research done by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund found that Wells Fargo denied mortgages to Black and Latino Americans at twice the rate for White Americans. Americans of color are also more likely to be the victims of deed theft, a problem that NYC is tackling under a task force spearheaded by Mayor Mamdani.

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Charlotte, NC – Wells Fargo’s mortgage lending patterns demonstrate significant racial disparities in Charlotte and across North Carolina, according to a new report released by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, North Carolina United Power for Action/NC Industrial Areas Foundation, Organized Power in Numbers, and UNITE HERE North Carolina. The study analyzed nearly 25,000 North Carolina mortgage applications and over 16,000 mortgage loans at Wells Fargo between 2020 and 2024 and found racial disparities across several key metrics.

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“Senators cannot accept legislation that falls short of prohibiting all elected and appointed public officials to high office and their families, including the President and Vice President, from promoting, issuing, or sponsoring crypto products and services, directly or indirectly,” Americans for Financial Reform, Demand Progress Action, Indivisible and Public Citizen said in a letter on Friday, which has not been previously reported.

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The signatories include national consumer and civil rights groups such as Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and the National Consumer Law Center, along with state and local organizations from across the country.

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Shareholder advocacy groups have drawn links between the Exxon’s voting platform and Texas move and a broader shift among some lawmakers and regulatory bodies against shareholders. Americans for Financial Reform has described Texas’ legal changes as part of a “race to the bottom” among state governments to attract companies to redomicile.

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Americans for Financial Reform / Take on Wall Street A national coalition working to make the financial system serve working families and the real economy, rather than big banks, private equity, and Wall Street power.

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Industry groups, including the Bank Policy Institute and Consumer Bankers Association, largely welcomed the adjustment. While they previously raised concerns that narrowing the scope might affect data quality and fair lending enforcement, the CFPB contended the change would still encompass 92-93% of small business lending, primarily handled by bigger banks. Conversely, Americans for Financial Reform, a pro-consumer group, criticised the alteration as further weakening a crucial civil rights tool, deeming it “unnecessary and immoral.”

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The billionaire-engineered One Big Beautiful Bill last year secured $2 trillion in tax giveaways for the wealthy by cutting healthcare coverage and food assistance from an estimated more than 15 million Americans. Research from Americans for Financial Reform and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project shows that billionaire-backed private equity has significantly contributed to the affordable housing and healthcare crises by buying up supply, jacking up prices and decreasing access and quality.

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The growing dominance of corporations within the housing sector has contributed to the continued rise of unaffordable rents, junk fees, and other tenant abuses. These excesses have sparked a resurgence of antitrust and consumer protection enforcement actions against extractive Wall Street landlords and the tech platforms that enable them, including the 2024 lawsuit against RealPage. This antitrust case and those that followed have demonstrated the power of antitrust tools to take on corporate landlord monopolies that are harming millions of tenants nationwide.

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This legislation is endorsed by Americans for Financial Reform; Bipartisan Policy Center, Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance; Greater New Orleans, Inc.; Environmental Defense Fund (EDF); Greater New Orleans Foundation; Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA); HousingLOUISIANA; Gulf Coast Bank & Trust; Home Builders Association of Greater New Orleans (HBAGNO); Flood Mitigation Industry Association (FMIA); National Association of Counties (NACo); New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity; Northshore Business Council; PETERMAYER; Fair Insurance Rates for Monroe (FIRM); and Smart Home America.

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The votes come amid growing pressure on the bank related to its climate rollbacks, racist lending practices, and union-busting record. A new report published by The Americans for Financial Reform’s Education Fund found evidence of racial discrimination in the bank’s lending practices, with the bank denying mortgage applications from Black, Latino, and Asian applicants at twice the rate of white applicants in North Carolina. Workers demonstrated outside of the bank’s Charlotte office in response to the findings.

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The extended comment period would give people time to assess how retirees would be exposed to the products that are mentioned in the proposed rule, said Patrick Woodall, managing director for Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, one of the signatories.

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CHARLOTTE, NC – Wells Fargo’s mortgage lending patterns demonstrate significant racial disparities in Charlotte and across North Carolina, according to a new report released by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, North Carolina United Power for Action/NC Industrial Areas Foundation, Organized Power in Numbers, and UNITE HERE North Carolina. The study analyzed nearly 25,000 North Carolina mortgage applications and over 16,000 mortgage loans at Wells Fargo between 2020 and 2024 and found racial disparities across several key metrics.

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Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund released a report Wednesday showing that Wells Fargo denied Black, Latino and Asian mortgage applicants about twice as frequently as white applicants. “It does raise significant questions about Wells Fargo’s interest and willingness to serve the entirety of the community in North Carolina,” Patrick Woodall, managing director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization, told NC Newsline.

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The Americans for Financial Reform’s Education Fund released its study, “Dreams Denied: Wells Fargo’s Troubling Pattern of Racial Disparities in North Carolina Mortgage Lending,” on Wednesday.

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Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund is asking bank regulators, city officials and public partners to scrutinize Wells Fargo’s track record and consider responses that could range from audits of its underwriting systems to rethinking public contracts with the bank. Community groups say the findings make the case for tougher, more consistent fair-lending enforcement.

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Similar comments came from Tom Feltner, Associate Director of Consumer Policy at Americans for Financial Reform. “Rather than cutting enforcement, supervision, and outreach staff, we should be strengthening the capacity of those offices to hold financial wrongdoers accountable, prevent emerging risks like those that caused the 2008 financial crisis, and prevent the wave of scams making everyone’s lives more difficult and more expensive,” said Feltner.

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Similar comments came from Tom Feltner, Associate Director of Consumer Policy at Americans for Financial Reform. “Rather than cutting enforcement, supervision, and outreach staff, we should be strengthening the capacity of those offices to hold financial wrongdoers accountable, prevent emerging risks like those that caused the 2008 financial crisis, and prevent the wave of scams making everyone’s lives more difficult and more expensive,” said Feltner.

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A coalition of 40 organizations sent letters to the committee on April 14, 2026, urging passage of all four. The groups range from wildfire survivor networks in Altadena and Pacific Palisades to the California Nurses Association, Consumer Watchdog, the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Biological Diversity, Americans for Financial Reform, and dozens of community organizations across the state. Former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones is among the signatories.

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