AFR’s Senior Policy Analyst Renita Marcellin testified at the House Financial Services Committee’s Task Force on Financial Technology’s hearing “What’s in Your Digital Wallet? A Review of Recent Trends in Mobile Banking and Payments.”
A nationwide survey of retail investors was conducted between March 18 and 29, 2022, by Embold Research on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen. Broadly, these survey results show that investors care about climate-related risks and opportunities of public companies, support the SEC requiring climate-related disclosures with third-party audit, and would factor the information disclosed into their investment practices.
AFREF led 26 other organizations in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting its proposals that would provide to investors in private funds (such as hedge funds and private equity funds) basic and important information on a quarterly basis to make informed investment decisions.
AFREF sent a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting several of its proposals that would better protect investors in private funds (such as hedge funds and private equity firms) that currently do not have the basic, necessary information they currently need to make informed decisions.
AFREF sent a comment letter to the Federal Reserve on firms’ eligibility to gain access to privileged Fed Reserve accounts and services.
AFREF, joined by the Center for Economic Policy and Research and United for Respect, sent a comment letter responding to the FTC and DOJ’s request for information on merger enforcement. The letter calls on the agencies to to closely scrutinize and create presumptions to challenge acquisitions that employ leveraged buyouts and techniques like it.
The private equity industry has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into fossil fuel companies with little scrutiny.
AFREF sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission supporting its proposals to reform Money Market Mutual Funds to better protect investors and the financial system. Money Market Mutual Funds have now been bailed out by policymakers twice in the last 12 years and benefit from paying higher interest rates above bank deposits without being subject to the same investor protection and safeguards as them.
AFREF sent a comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) supporting the SEC’s proposals to modernize the reporting of beneficial ownership by including cash-settled derivatives in large position reports over Schedules 13D and 13G. We also urge the SEC to clarify its definition of who should constitute a “group” under the proposal as it should only apply to the sharing of material nonpublic information related to not yet disclosed large positions instead of efforts to improve the long-term corporate governance of companies.
“There’s nothing happening to reverse the Trump deregulatory agenda at the Fed or to think about what the Fed ought to be doing on financial regulation,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, an advocacy group that represents unions and civil-rights and consumer groups.