With the new rules it proposed this week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has moved to make the rapidly expanding world of prepaid and payroll cards a safer and more straightforward place. The CFPB’S proposal would limit, though not prohibit, overdraft programs that blur
AFR sent a letter to House and Senate members asking them to oppose S. 2732, the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Examination and Reporting Threshold Act of 2014.” This legislation would increase from $10 billion to $50 billion the asset threshold for “large banks” subject to supervision by the CFPB, dramatically reducing the number of large banks supervised by the CFPB threatening harm to the hundreds of millions of consumers who are beginning to benefit from effective oversight of these institutions.
A Capitol Hill briefing with JARED BERNSTEIN, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; former chief economist to the Vice President; SARAH ANDERSON, Global Economy Project Director, Institute for Policy Studies; DAVID HILLMAN, Director of Stamp Out Poverty and Founder of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign (UK); ANDREW HANAUER, Campaigns Director, Jubilee USA Network; HEATHER SLAVKIN CORZO, Director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment; and ROBERT WEISSMAN, President of Public Citizen.
“The Military Lending Act [restricts] small-dollar, short-term lending practices, but lenders have found many ways around the law. The Defense Department has proposed beefing up the act… so that it applies to ‘all forms of payday loans, vehicle title loans, refund anticipation loans, deposit advance loans, installment loans, unsecured open-end lines of credit, and credit cards…’ A number of financial services industry associations believe the current proposal… takes the wrong approach… [But] the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumer Law Center and Americans for Financial Reform all support the expansion.”
“Broad consensus on the real-life harms caused by these lending products has united consumers in all 50 states and forged an unprecedented call of concern linking 467 organizations including civil rights leaders, clergy, labor, veterans, elder and consumer advocates. Pending legislation and an upcoming rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) together triggered a deluge of advocacy with a single purpose: stop the debt trap of triple-digit interest rates on a range of predatory products like payday, car title and high-cost installment loans.”
Mel Watt is being urged again to end the policy of prohibiting mortgage modifications that reduce the balance of principal. In a joint letter delivered today, more than 200 housing, community, labor, civil rights and consumer groups call on Watt to reverse the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s longstanding ban on principal reduction – a policy put in place by his predecessor.
“After the financial collapse, Congress made great strides in regulating the financial industry so that we reduce the chance of another Great Recession,” [candidate Alan] Cohn said in an email. “Ross is using his place on the House Financial Services (Committee) to undo those regulations for financial favors at the expense of the middle class.” Americans for Financial Reform, which tracks Congress members for votes on financial regulation, lists Ross as having often voted along party lines in opposition to reforms that protect consumers.
Section 953b of the Dodd-Frank Act requires banks and other large public corporations to disclose the pay of their CEOs as a multiple of the pay of their median employees. Of the 400-odd rules mandated by Dodd-Frank, this one is arguably the simplest. But CEOs have lobbied against it both at the SEC and in Congress, and four years after the law was enacted, the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to put the pay-ratio provision into effect.
“Rep. Shelley Moore Capito wants West Virginians to know she’s a defender of community banks… Capito, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees consumer lending and finance companies, is married to a banker who has worked for Wells Fargo and Citigroup. ‘One characteristic of her bills is that they do include community banks, but they would also help much larger banks,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform…”
“When these financial predators come after them, I feel ashamed for the rest of us,” Sen. Warren tells former Rep. Patrick Murphy. She goes on to praise the Defense Department’s new Military Lending Act rules, the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs, and (responding to a comment by Murphy) Americans for Financial Reform. “Yes, they’ve been terrific.”