AFR joined five member organizations in sending a letter to members of Congress, urging that they oppose HR 2672, “The CFPB Rural Designation Petition and Correction Act.” This bill would amend the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to allow for increased opportunity for lenders to sidestep important consumer protections, including rules to ensure borrowers have the ability to repay their loans.
“’You could potentially use this to unravel big chunks of Dodd-Frank,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition that includes the AFL-CIO labor union. The CFTC should institute a default presumption that affiliates are guaranteed by their parent company unless a bank can prove otherwise, he said.”
In addition to taking consumer complaints (about mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank accounts, credit reporting, auto loans, debt collection, payday loans, and money transfers, among other topics), the CFPB offers a variety of additional resources for consumers seeking to learn more about their rights in the financial system.
AFR sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to oppose HR 4167. If enacted, this legislation would advance the interests of a few Wall Street mega-banks in weakening implementation of the Volcker Rule ban on proprietary trading.
AFR called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to require the release of loan-level data for asset backed securities, which include the ‘toxic assets’ central to the financial crisis. The AFR comment includes a discussion of privacy controls.
“Americans for Financial Reform supports the separation of banking and commerce as a foundational principle, motivated both by considerations of preserving fairness in competition with non-bank firms who do not have access to the prudential safety net, and by considerations of financial safety and soundness.”
AFR joined ten organizations in sending a letter to members of Congress urging them to oppose HR 2892. If enacted, this legislation would bring changes to current law, exempting debt collection attorneys from the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”.) This would effectively permit lawyers and law firms engaging in debt collection to evade essential requirements of the FDCPA which prohibit deception, unfair activities, and harassment against consumers.
“[T]wo U.S. senators have proposed a bill that would make it easier for people to learn about and challenge [credit report] errors, as well as increase the credit reporting industry’s accountability for mistakes that go uncorrected…,” Fox Business news reports. “The bill drew praise from consumer groups, including the Consumer Federation of American, the National Consumer Law Center, Americans for Financial Reform, and Consumers Union, the poliucy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.”
AFR sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to oppose “The Customer Protection and End User Relief Act.” This legislation would place significant new barriers in the way of effective oversight of commodities and derivatives markets crucial to our economy, barriers not faced by any other regulatory agency. The new statutory ‘cost benefit’ restrictions it places on CFTC rulemaking would enable financial industry interests to indefinitely delay and possibly overturn regulations, even where Congress has clearly directed the regulators to act, and where regulation is sorely needed to protect the public interest.