Americans for Financial Reform is stepping up its campaign in support of the consumer’s right to a day in court. A significant five-figure digital campaign targeting Maine, Alaska, Louisiana and Arizona will tell the stories of Hudson and Byrd, who were scammed by Wells Fargo – and left with no means of pursuing justice.
“FHFA made a great decision,” said Amanda Jackson, AFR’s Organizing and Outreach Manager. “Knowing homeowners’ preferred language will help Fannie, Freddie, and mortgage servicers better communicate with their customers and avoid unnecessary – and sometimes devastating – confusion.”
“Oversight of payday loans is particularly lax in Ohio… State voters approved reforms in 2008, but the industry found ways around the restrictions on interest rates and other measures designed to protect borrowers… ‘Payday and car title lenders profit from repeatedly dragging hard-pressed people deeper and deeper into debt, and taking advantage of families when they are financially vulnerable,’ Lisa Donner, with Americans for Financial Reform, told the Associated Press. ‘Curbing the ability to push loans that borrowers clearly cannot repay is a key protection.'”
A look back at the financial lobby’s robotic opposition to one proposed reform after another, and how Wall Street’s claims have squared with real-world events. This new AFR report homes in on three pre-financial-crisis case studies, involving credit cards, mortgages, and derivatives.
AFR sent the letter below to the House Financial Services Committee urging them to reject nineteen deregulatory bills. AFR Letter Re HFSC 10-11 Markup
AFR sent a comment letter to the Federal Reserve Board urging them to modify proposed rules that would reduce accountability for bank Boards of Directors, and also to examine further changes that would expand such accountability AFR Response to Proposed Guidance On Boards of Directors
“ILC charters exploit a loophole in federal banking laws to gain access to the federal deposit-insurance safety net while avoiding critical federal supervision and regulation. ILCs therefore pose unique risks to the financial system… If these applications are granted, [it] will send a clear signal to the marketplace that the FDIC intends once again to approve ILC deposit insurance applications, potentially unleashing a dangerous avalanche of new applications.”
The New York investment bank has had other periods in the sun, but never before have its priorities been so hardwired into an administration in Washington. The report details Goldman’s interests in areas of public policy including financial regulation, tax cuts and infrastructure.
Goldman Sachs-linked appointees in the Trump administration are pursuing a broad agenda of deregulation and privatization that will directly benefit the New York investment bank.
“Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, expressed concern about the report’s guidance. ‘The recommendations are “almost uniformly deregulatory.’ he said. ‘It is written pretty technically, but what they are saying is that a lot of things that were done after the crisis to try increase our safety margins and improve our risk control on derivatives they want to cut back on.’”