AFR sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to protect retirement savings and reject HR 1090. This legislation would significantly delay and possibly prevent the Department of Labor from proposing a rule addressing flaws in protections for retirement savings, protections that have not been updated for some forty years.
AFR and five other consumer advocacy organizations, sent a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White detailing key investor protections that the SEC has failed to take, and urging Chair White to act on them.
AFR and 9 other organizations sent a letter to Chair Mary Jo White expressing concern over the exclusion of Professor Joseph Stiglitz from the SEC Market Structure Advisory Committee. The letter urges the SEC to reconsider, or to provide more detail regarding how it arrived to its decision.
“One area where [Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom] Raskin has flexed her muscles is in a new drive to restrict executive compensation at the biggest banks… [T]he Dodd-Frank Act required federal regulators to prohibit pay packaged to bank executives that encouraged inappropriate risk-taking… The matter has been revived in recent months, in part because Raskin has made it a priority, pushing it with Lew and the President himself…”
“We’re very pleased that regulators seem to be returning to the drawing board and thinking about a rule that might actually have some impact,” says Lisa Donner, executive director of the liberal Americans for Financial Reform, adding that Raskin has been a “champion” on the issue.
In a joint letter to Congress, Americans for Financial Reform and 340 organizations–state, local and national consumer groups, civil rights groups, faith-based groups, housing groups, labor unions and others–warn against efforts to “dismantle, weaken, or change the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
AFR and 340 additional organizations sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to oppose any efforts to dismantle, weaken, or change the structure of the CFPB, which was established by Congress to ensure that markets work in an open, transparent, and fair way for consumers. Failure to appropriately regulate the consumer financial marketplace was a central cause of the financial crisis that devastated the U.S. and global economies; the CFPB is a shining success story of the efforts to correct the mistakes and close the gaps that led to that failure. The letter urges members of Congress to support the CFPB in fulfilling its consumer protection mission, rather than undermine it.
“H.R. 650 would not expand access to sustainable credit and would not serve the interests of homeowners and communities. Instead, this bill would undermine already vulnerable homeowners by stripping away protections created by Congress and implemented by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
“As organizations that support strengthening protections for retirement savers, we write to thank you for sending a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to update and close loopholes in the 40-year-old rules that apply when individuals receive professional advice about retirement investments. Updating protections for retirement savers is urgently needed and long overdue.”
“President Barack Obama unveiled a significant retirement security proposal with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday, announcing plans to bolster retirement accounts by curbing conflicts of interest on Wall Street… Obama’s decision to put political capital behind a new rule has encouraged many financial reform advocates. ‘It makes sense, it’s right and it’s important,’ said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform.”
President Obama came down squarely on the side of working families when he announced his support for reforms to establish a higher standard for investment advice. Developed and championed by the Department of Labor (DOL), these reforms will update a set of 40-year old rules governing those who give advice affecting the investment of money in employee retirement plans.