FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 21, 2026
CONTACT: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
AFR Statement Urging House to Oppose Harmful Bank Deregulation in H.R. 6955, the Main Street Capital Access Act
Statement of Oscar Valdés Viera, Senior Policy Analyst for Private Equity and Capital Markets
The House majority is pushing a package of risky bank deregulation that is just another giveaway to Wall Street banks when the Congress should be laser focused on the affordability crisis. It is beyond ironic that the Congress is considering this dangerous bank deregulation on the 16th anniversary of the passage of Dodd-Frank and 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Instead of providing meaningful relief from sky high credit card interest rates and late fees, this bill just lets big banks off the hook by weakening oversight, enacting carve-outs and exemptions from banking laws, and creating a pathway for banks to block commonsense regulatory safeguards that could reduce the likelihood and severity of financial crises.
H.R. 6955 would automatically raise major regulatory thresholds, weaken bank examiners tools, create new avenues to contest supervisory and enforcement decisions, reduce meaningful competition review for many bank mergers, and expand merchant banking arrangements that blur the line between banking and commerce. It gives banks more breaks to take risks with less oversight and thinner cushions of safety.
These provisions would amplify the aggressive deregulatory campaign at the Federal Reserve and other banking agencies that is rapidly dismantling the guardrails that have helped safeguard the financial system for fifteen years. Taken together, they would leave the financial system dramatically weaker and make future bank failures and publicly financed bailouts more likely.
AFR and 27 labor, community, consumer, and public interest advocacy organizations sent a letter urging the House of Representatives to reject this risky giveaway to big banks.
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