“…the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “Bureau”) published an interim final rule that redefines the small creditors serving rural and underserved areas who are exempt from certain consumer protections in Regulation Z. The interim final rule dramatically increases the number of lenders who qualify for this exemption. “
“Financialization has been the elephant in the room of economic policy debate — a huge contributing factor to the skyrocketing incomes of a few and the nonliving wages of many, and a force that helps explain our neglected infrastructure, underfunded schools, outlandishly expensive colleges and the phenomenon of graduates impoverished by the high-interest loans that banks thrive on these days.”
““This is pretty clearly an improvement of the 2011 rule, but the 2011 rule was very weak,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director at the advocacy organization Americans for Financial Reform. Mr. Stanley said he had hoped that banks would have to hold back pay for more than four years because big losses on bank investments can often take longer than that to materialize.”
AFR sent a letter today to the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to require alternative asset managers to disclose the amount of carried interest they received in their annual tax filings. The letter states that: “The carried interest tax loophole allows managers of
“About half of all online payday loan customers end up paying fees ($185 is the average amount) triggered by failed debit attempts. Some lenders keep on trying to collect in even when there is likely to be no effect other than to increase the cost to the borrower. Some companies will even break a payment into multiple smaller amounts, submitting three $100 requests, for example, instead of one $300 request. A third of the customers hit with such penalties end up having their bank accounts closed involuntarily.”
“AFR welcomes FHFA’s announcement that it will take additional steps to limit the negative effects of underwater mortgages on homeowners and their communities. Principal reduction on underwater mortgages has been a priority for AFR and many of our members, and we have long urged FHFA to adopt this position. “
“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to urge you to vote against the “Commodity End User Relief Act”, a bill that reauthorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and makes other statutory changes. This legislation makes no progress at all on the key issue facing the CFTC, the severe level of underfunding that prevents the agency from fully and properly implementing its new responsibilities under the Dodd Frank Act. “
“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to express our opposition to HR 3340.[1] This legislation would eliminate the independent funding for the Financial Stability Oversight Commission (FSOC) and its research arm, the Office of Financial Research (OFR), subjecting the budget for these agencies to the appropriations process. It would also require that the OFR provide a 90 day notice and comment period prior to issuing any report or rule, and report in advance the details of planned spending to Congress.”
“On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we are writing to urge you to vote against the “Commodity End User Relief Act”, a bill that reauthorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and makes other statutory changes. The CFTC’s role in regulating commodity and derivatives markets is vital to businesses that use commodity markets to hedge risks, vital to the economic well-being of American families who rely on affordable prices for products like gasoline and food, and vital to overall financial stability. “
“These regulatory assessments add yet more weight to the case for aggressive action to realize the promise made in the Dodd-Frank Act that ‘too big to fail’ will be ended. The findings open the door to such action by authorizing regulators to place additional controls on the five banks whose plans were officially found to be ‘not credible’ if these banks do not meet the October 1st deadline for remediating the issues identified in the resolution plans. The regulators’ action also starts the two year clock in Dodd-Frank on the potential breakup or restructuring of these banks.”