Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized its Personal Financial Data Rights proposal, a long-overdue measure that can help create a more consumer-friendly and competitive financial services marketplace.
AFREF submitted a comment letter supporting the National Consumer Law Center’s petition urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to define residential real estate leases as “credit” and landlords as “creditors” under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. This petition for rulemaking addresses important components of the ongoing legacy of structural racism in credit and residential housing for people of color seeking rental leases to shelter their families and build a foundation for economic stability.
AFREF, Consumer Federation of America, Prof. Arthur Wilmarth, Jr. and Center for Responsible Lending submitted a comment to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation supporting the effort to strengthen the oversight of industrial loan companies (ILCs). The proposed rule would heighten scrutiny of new ILCs or attempts to take over existing ILCs that will more fully consider the unique risks of these banks.
New report recommends financial and trade reforms to improve data and accountability on financial flows and help close the climate finance gaps in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Con artists are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency in scams that target older people, accelerating the already surging elder fraud in the United States. Cryptocurrency’s role in elder fraud is exploding, costing older people billions of dollars annually, emptying retirement funds, life savings and the ability to cover daily expenses or enjoy their retirement.
It also has the support of labor and financial-policy groups, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Lisa Donner, executive director of financial watchdog group Americans for Financial Reform, said the bill “takes important, much-needed steps to rein in Wall Street predatory practices and promote a more just and sustainable economy.”
Cryptocurrency promises a high-tech opportunity to make buckets of money, but like most get-rich-quick schemes, rip-offs are ubiquitous. The crypto industry is rife with scams, hustles akin to stock swindles, cyberbreaches, and other crimes that can easily separate investors and consumers from their money.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recent enforcement action against Ejudicate, a forced arbitration platform, highlights the urgent need to restrain a practice that hurts millions of consumers. The agency found Ejudicate had misled student borrowers about its neutrality in arbitration and illegally started sham forced arbitrations against those borrowers.
The Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2024 includes new measures to curb the growing power of private equity across the board and in key sectors of the economy like healthcare, and to penalize private equity firms and executives for their actions that harm a company and its workers even after they no longer control it. Lessons from the 2023 collapse of Steward Health Care, which stemmed from its 2010 buyout by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, shaped the new provisions.
Since fall 2023, AFREF and partners have been part of an ongoing Campaign for Lower Home Energy Costs. The goal is for The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to require new homes with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be built to