AFR welcomes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s newly announced inquiry into overdraft fees, their impact on consumers, and in particular the Bureau’s focus on check re-ordering, and misleading or confusing marketing of so-called “standard” overdraft protection, a product deemed so abusive that regulators now require a consumer’s affirmative consent or “opt-in”.
“In issuing its proposed rule defining ‘larger participants ‘in the debt collection and consumer credit reporting markets the CFPB took an important step towards more accountability and fairness in the consumer financial marketplace.”
“The U.S. House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would let banks keep commodity and equity derivatives in federally-insured units by removing part of the Dodd-Frank Act’s so-called push-out rule. …Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition including the AFL-CIO labor federation as well as other unions and consumer advocacy groups, opposed changes to the push-out rule in a letter before the vote.”
Click here to view this week’s highlights and lowlights in Wall Street Reform – February 11, 2012 – February 17, 2012.
AFR sent the following letter to House Financial Services Committee members, expressing concerns about three proposed bills that would undermine transparency and accountability in the financial system.
The so-called Volcker Rule has broken the record for attracting the most comment letters submitted on any Dodd-Frank proposal. Regulators have received a whopping 17,000-plus comments on the proposal, a Federal Reserve spokeswoman said. …Behind this deluge is a partnership of two consumer advocacy groups that have been active in pushing back against the banks during the Dodd-Frank rule-writing process. Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform used email lists and social media such as Twitter and Facebook to recruit members and others to submit comments on the Volcker Rule.
“What does Goldman Sachs have in common with Red Lobster and Macy’s? They all loathe the Volcker Rule. …An array of supporters of the proposed rule, including Mr. Volcker himself, pushed back against the escalating rhetoric. ‘This criticism is deeply misguided,’ Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit group that favors Wall Street regulation, said in a comment letter. The group said that too much of a good thing, or ‘excessive market liquidity,’ drove the financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008.”
Support for a Wall Street Speculation Tax has been spreading across the nation with more grassroots groups calling for a tax on reckless Wall Street speculation than ever before. To move forward on winning this policy change, we need members of Congress to step up and support Wall Street speculation taxes. Write your Senators and Representatives and ask them to support a Wall Street Speculation tax.
AFR sent a letter to the Senate, expressing concerns about a raft of bills that are harmful to economic and job growth.
“This public support for Volcker is the outgrowth of a letter-writing campaign by Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, and other advocacy groups that have lobbied to defend and strengthen Dodd-Frank. Since Dodd-Frank was passed, regulators have invited the public to weigh in on the new rules before turning the blueprints into final law.”