Americans for Financial Reform

AFR Testimony: AFR Testifies on Legislation that Would Rollback Financial Reform

“Chairman Neugebauer, Ranking member Clay, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform. AFR opposes HR 2287 (NCUA Budget Transparency Act), HR 2896 (the TAILOR Act), and HR 3340 (the Financial Stability Oversight Council Reform Act). We also have concerns regarding HR 2209 (requiring the treatment of certain municipal debt obligations as level 2A assets under liquidity rules).”

Letter to Regulators: AFR, 11 Organizations Encourage Regulators to Work Quickly to Address Executive Compensation

“We are writing because we are concerned about the slow progress toward the implementation of Section 956(b) of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits large financial institutions from using compensation schemes that encourage excessive risk taking. “

AFR Statement: New HMDA Rules Should Advance Efforts to Make Mortgage Credit Available Fairly, Safely, and Broadly

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced yesterday that it has finalized a set of updated HMDA rules that should significantly improve the quality and value of this data, deepening public understanding of the mortgage market and advancing efforts to make credit available fairly, safely, and broadly.”

Joint Press Release: 52 Organizations Back Sen. Baldwin’s Effort to Close Carried Interest Loophole

“Closing the carried interest loophole should be among the first items considered in the ongoing negotiations to prevent the damaging and indiscriminate sequester cuts and to invest in critical programs that support low- and middle-income Americans,” the organizations wrote in the letter. “The carried interest loophole is an egregious violation of the principle of tax fairness.”

AFR Statement: The Clinton Campaign Lays out a Financial Reform Agenda

“These are matters of vital public significance, and it is a sign of progress that they are on the public agenda for the 2016 election… In a number of important areas, however, the plan largely restates existing law or practice, or reiterates commitments that regulators have already made. As a totality it does not go far enough to address the scale and scope of the problems of our financial system. “

Letter to Regulators: AFR Joins 27 Organizations in Concern over T-Mobile and Experian Customer Data Breach

“We, the undersigned organizations concerned with data privacy and consumer protection, write to express grave concerns raised by the early reports of the significant data security breach affecting T-Mobile customers and applicants whose information was stored by Experian. “

Event: A Discussion on America’s Banking System

“The University of Georgia School of Law is sponsoring an important panel on America’s banking system at the National Press Club in Washington. Panelists Simon Johnson ( Ronald A. Kurtz [1954] Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of 13 Bankers and White House Burning); Lisa Donner (Executive Director, Americans for Financial Reform) and Mehrsa Baradaran (Associate Professor of Law, University of Georgia, and author of the new book How the Other Half Banks) will be in conversation, moderated by David Dayen.”

AFR Statement: The CFPB Takes a Stand on Class-Action Bans

“Class actions, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg explained in 1997, create room for “vindication of the rights of groups of people who individually would be without effective strength” to object to wrongdoing. Leaving consumers without “effective strength” is precisely the point of the class-action bans found more and more often in contracts governing student and payday loans, credit and prepaid cards, and other financial products and services.”

AFR in the News: Democrat Eyeing McCain’s Senate Seat Moves From Pagan Socialist to Conservative Blue Dog (InsideSources)

“Lisa Donner, head of Americans for Financial Reform… dismissed the notion that Congress needs to re-debate the agency’s structure. ‘Each month that goes by, it’s easier to make the case that CFPB is doing its job,’ Donner said. ‘These questions have been asked and answered.’”

AFR in the News: House Dems Back Away from Effort to Turn CFPB Into a Commission (Huffington Post)

It’s “a form of agency leadership that has been shown again and again to produce weak regulation and enforcement at best, and partisan gridlock at worst,” said Jim Lardner of AFR. “The commission idea is being promoted by an alliance of financial industry lobbyists and lawmakers who have been out to undermine the Bureau’s effectiveness ever since they failed to block its creation.”