239 organizations signed a letter to President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris, calling on them to use executive authority to cancel federal student debt on day one of their administration. The letter was led by Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Responsible Lending, Demos, the National Consumer Law Center, and Student Borrower Protection Center.
Looser monetary policy is a dangerous combination paired with the aggressive weakening of financial regulation by Jerome Powell’s Fed
By creating a blanket exemption for a broadly defined group of “finders” to effectively act as solicitors and brokers in private investment markets without being subject to any of the requirements on registered broker-dealers as regards disclosure, qualifications, obligations to customers, pricing, record-keeping, business conduct, financial resources, or compliance with FINRA rules, the Commission would abrogate its responsibilities to protect investors and to maintain fair and orderly markets.
“The C.F.P.B. should make sure companies are complying with all emergency protections on the books, and maximizing assistance to consumers to prevent garnishments, foreclosures and repossessions,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund joined our partners in sending a letter signed by 83 groups opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed reorganization of its Division of Supervision, Enforcement and Fair Lending because it would drastically weaken the office’s authority independence, and effectiveness, and leave consumers vulnerable to harm.
While it’s true that the largest banks currently look solvent in the face of economic stress, this is in significant part because they have benefited greatly from regulatory forbearance and from Federal Reserve intervention in financial markets. This report, based on analysis of regulations and bank financial reports by Americans for Financial Education Fund and Risky Finance, lays out some of the clearest ways in which the nation’s six largest banks have benefited from regulatory forbearance and the Federal Reserve’s financial market interventions.
The folk legend Robin Hood was, as every child knows, the legendary outlaw who robbed from the rich to give to the poor. But in a reincarnation of a long-running Wall Street scheme, it is the wily financiers who rob from the ordinary folk holding investment accounts at Robinhood.
“It’s basically a way to finance state and local investment that doesn’t go through Wall Street and doesn’t leave the community and turn into a windfall for shareholders,” said Porter McConnell, the campaign director of advocacy group Take On Wall Street. “This is more about community development.”
77 organizations call on Education Secretary DeVos to extend the federal student loan suspension Today, 77 community, civil rights, consumer, and student advocacy organizations sent a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, urging her to extend the suspension of payments on federal student loans through September
The regulator of the nation’s largest banks has finalized a rule that allows predatory lenders to do an end-run around state interest rate caps, exposing people to loans in excess of 100% APR that violate state rate limits. Merely by putting a bank’s name on the fine print of the paperwork, predatory lenders could claim that the loan is a bank loan exempt from state rate caps.