Americans for Financial Reform

Letter to Congress: AFR, 88 Organizations Oppose Changing the Leadership Structure of the CFPB

“Those who backed the CFPB’s creation and support its work overwhelmingly agree that one director is the preferred structure. Those who push hardest for a change to a commission opposed the creation of a consumer protection agency at the outset. Consumer advocates are united in their support for the current structure. This is not a case of the public demanding “reform.” Rather, it is a campaign manufactured by the very Wall Street banks, payday lenders, and other financial firms the CFPB was created to regulate. We urge you to defend a strong CFPB and to reject proposals to change the leadership structure, weaken the funding, narrow the authority, or otherwise hobble the effectiveness of this crucially important agency.”

Press Release: Over 200,000 Petitioners Tell Congress to Reject Wall Street Policy Riders

Today, CREDO Action, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, USAction and USPIRG delivered petitions in which more than 200,000 Americans told Congress not to let the budget process be used as a vehicle for backdoor financial deregulation.

Letter to Congress: AFR and Consumer Federation of America Urge Congress Not to Undermine Investor Protections

“We are writing in advance of this week’s mark-up to express our concerns regarding two of the bills scheduled for consideration – H.R. 2187, the Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act and H.R. 3784, the SEC Small Business Advocate Act. Both bills require significant amendments, described below, to ensure that they do not undermine essential investor protections. Unless those changes are adopted, we urge you to oppose these bills.”

AFR in the News: Congressional Republicans using fear of a government shutdown to help big banks (Vox)

“Right now any bank over $50 billion dollars in size automatically becomes a SIFI [systematically important financial institution]. Richard Shelby, the [Senate Banking Committee] chair… originally called for raising that threshold to $500 billion. But Republicans also want to weaken the ability to designate non-banks as SIFIs. As Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform told me, ‘The FSOC designation procedure is already lengthy and time-consuming and includes numerous procedural protections for firms under consideration. These bills are designed to make it essentially unworkable.'”

Letter to Congress: Delaying the DoL Fiduciary Rule Would Cripple It

“We are writing to urge you to tell both your leadership and appropriators that you strongly oppose any rider that will directly or indirectly defund, delay or otherwise interfere with the Department of Labor’s ability to finalize its rule requiring retirement investment advice to be in the best interest of investors…. Every additional day of delay adds to the losses that working families and retirees suffer because of financial advice that is not in their best interests. We urge you to let both your leadership and appropriators know that you stand with your hard-working constituents who are doing their best to save for retirement—and against any rider that would diminish their efforts. “

AFR in the News: Corinthian students to receive $28 million in loan forgiveness (Washington Post)

“Alexis Goldstein, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, says the department has done a poor job of reaching out to Corinthian students who might be eligible for relief… ‘[T]he department should be pursuing a much more comprehensive, multi-pronged outreach strategy in order to ensure that all students victimized by Corinthian are aware of their legal right to pursue debt cancellation.’”

AFR Statement: Education Department Must Do More for Former Corinthian Students

“We welcome the news… that 1,312 former students of Heald College – part of predatory for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges Inc. – will finally see the debt cancellation they have long been promised. But we remain gravely concerned by the Department’s unjustifiably narrow approach to debt cancellation, which if it continues unchanged may leave hundreds of thousands of students burdened with debts foisted on them by deceptive and abusive practices.”

Joint Statement: Politicians Attempt to Shield Florida’s Predatory Payday Lenders

“In late November, a bipartisan group of members from Florida’s congressional delegation filed a bill in the House of Representatives that would exempt the state’s payday loan industry from national rules aimed at ending abusive low-dollar lending. The bill would delay implementation of any rule for two years after it was issued and then exempt not only Florida but also other states that adopt Florida’s sham regulatory model.”

Joint Statement: Wall Street, U.S. Chamber Ask Congress for Bailout from a Rulemaking That Would Hold Big Banks Accountable When They Cheat, Rip-Off Consumers

Congress must resist temptation to give in to powerful corporate lobbyists that seek to use the country’s budget process to eliminate a much-anticipated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rulemaking that would ensure consumers have access to court when cheated or ripped off, consumer advocacy groups said today. A group of industry representatives that includes the American Bankers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent letters to members of Congress this week encouraging them to add a harmful rider to the contentious spending bills that would disregard the CFPB’s multi-year, data-driven study and analysis on the use of forced arbitration clauses in the fine print of financial contracts.

AFR Statement: A Stronger Emergency Lending Rule from the Fed

“Yesterday the Federal Reserve issued its final rule on emergency lending. In response to bipartisan criticism of the 2013 proposal from, among others, Senators Elizabeth Warren and David Vitter, Representative Jeb Hensarling, and Americans for Financial Reform, the Federal Reserve has significantly modified its initial proposal.”