Americans for Financial Reform

Letter to Congress: AFR Urges Congress to Maintain the Integrity of Financial Reporting, Reject HR 4139

“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to reiterate our opposition to HR 4139, the “Fostering Innovation Act”. This legislation would double the length of the existing exemption from compliance with Sarbanes Oxley Section 404(b) for “emerging growth companies”, from five years to ten years… Ten years is an excessively long exemption. This is especially true given the significance to the public and the financial markets of accurate financial reporting. “

Letter to Congress: AFR, 42 Organizations Call on Congress to Preserve the CFPB’s Authority to Stop Abusive Financial Practices

“The undersigned organizations urge you to oppose H.R. 5112 or any similar bills that dramatically undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by eliminating its authority to prohibit abusive acts and practices and by imposing unworkable procedural requirements that would make it effectively impossible for the CFPB to write critical rules. “

AFR Statement: Study of car-title loans underscores need for payday rules

“Car-title loans, like payday loans, are often marketed as a source of short-term emergency credit; but they’re engineered, the CFPB’s research showed, to suck people into high-cost long-term debt. Only 12 percent of borrowers manage to repay their loans within the typical prescribed term of 30 days, according to the study, while fully 20 percent of borrowers end up losing their vehicles. The average borrower pays more in fees ($1,300) than the amount borrowed ($1,000).”

Letter to Congress: Don’t interfere with proposal to restore consumers’ class-action rights

“This rule is a crucial step to limit big banks’ and other financial companies’ efforts to escape liability if they break the law. Congressional or industry interference with the CFPB’s rulemaking process on forced arbitration would undermine consumer protection for critical financial products and services.”

AFR Statement: Skewed House hearing on arbitration

“Under the terms of the CFPB’s proposal, consumers and companies would remain perfectly free to resolve disputes through arbitration, but it would be a voluntary act on both sides. What the CFPB is seeking to regulate is involuntary arbitration, dictated and controlled by banks and financial companies through take it-or-leave-it contracts with consumers. More specifically, its proposal would bar companies from compelling consumers to sign away the right to join forces to challenge a practice that injures many people at once.”

Letter to Congress: AFR, 254 organizations oppose budget riders that would undermine financial reform

“We… urge you to oppose any funding bills that include provisions rolling back or undermining financial reform. At the end of last year Congress wisely rejected multiple efforts to use the budget process to force through unrelated ideological riders, including changes in financial regulation that would undermine consumer protections, endanger financial security, or reduce accountability for big banks. It is vitally important that members remain committed to opposing such riders again this year. “

Letter to Congress: AFR Calls on the House Financial Services Committee to Let the SEC Do Its Job, Oppose the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act

“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to express our opposition to the “SEC Regulatory Accountability Act”. Despite the fact that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is already subject to extensive statutory economic analysis requirements, and has greatly increased its investment in economic analysis in recent years, this legislation would impose a host of unworkable new bureaucratic and administrative burdens on the agency. “

Letter to Congress: AFR Urges Members of the House Financial Services Committee to Protect Investors and Oppose the Investment Advisors Modernization Act

“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform, we are writing to express our opposition to the “Investment Advisors Modernization Act of 2016”. Far from modernizing the regulation of investment advisors, this legislation would roll back the clock to the years before private fund advisors were subject to elementary oversight measures, measures that numerous documented abuses have shown to be necessary for investor protection. “

Letter to Congress: AFR, 26 Organizations Oppose Inclusion of Discriminatory Auto Lending Language in Appropriations Bill

“We, the undersigned organizations, ask you to oppose harmful riders to the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) fiscal year 2017 appropriations that would obstruct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to protect consumers. In particular, we urge you to oppose language mirroring S. 2663, the so-called “Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act.” “

AFR in the News: Google Removing Payday Loan Ads From Search Engine (NY Times)

“Google announced Wednesday that it would ban advertisements for payday loans and related products on its website, saying that they often lead to unaffordable repayment terms and financial harm to consumers… Lisa Donner, the executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement that Google’s new standards would stop abusive lenders from marketing what she described as ‘debt-trap products that do serious and lasting harm to consumers.’”