“A lobbying campaign by the securities industry threatens to water down a U.S. financial reform measure that was supposed to protect American states, towns and cities from being taken for a ride by financial advisors,” Karen Brettell of Reuters reports. Under pressure from House Republicans,
AFR’s foreclosure working group has appealed to the monitor of the national mortgage settlement to include race, ethnicity, and geography in a public process of evaluation. In a letter to Joseph Smith of the North Carolina-based Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight, the working group pointed
In an Oct. 9th letter to the CFPB, AFR criticized the bureau’s proposed rule for mortgage servicers, especially a provision allowing servicers to take a “dual-track” approach – considering a loan modification and pursuing foreclosure at the same time. The letter, co-signed by the NAACP,
Mandatory arbitration and its impact on the world of consumer finance was the topic of a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by AFR, Public Citizen & the National Association of Consumer Advocates.
Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, and the National Association Consumer Advocates held a briefing on the pervasive practice of mandatory binding arbitration in contracts for credit cards, student loans, payday loans, and assorted other financial products.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau won’t be on the ballot next month. Just the same, its continued vitality, if not its very existence, could turn out to rest on the election outcome, according to Janna Herron of Fox Business. “The bureau has quickly become the
Commerce Bank hiked the interest rate on Mira Tanna’s credit card to 20 percent – without telling her. Once she figured out what the bank had done, realized what happened, Tanna decided to make use of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new online complaint database,
“The Libor bid-rigging scandal is poised to more than double the losses suffered by U.S. states and localities that bought $500 billion in interest-rate swaps before the financial crisis,” according to Bloomberg News (Oct. 9). “Manipulation of the London interbank offered rate cost issuers in
In a telephone press conference co-hosted by Americans for Financial Reform, investor advocates and the president of a state securities regulators’ group sharply criticized the SEC’s proposed rule to permit the mass marketing of private stock offerings. The four speakers were united in asking the
In a press-teleconference this afternoon, Arkansas State Securities Commissioner Heath Abshure, who is also president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, joined three investor advocates in sharply criticizing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first JOBS Act rulemaking – one that allows the mass marketing