The giveaways to private equity firms subsidize predatory and extractive practices that harm workers, families, and communities. At the same time, the big, brutal bill dismantles critical agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, making people more vulnerable to scams, rip-offs, and junk fees.
This week, the Trump Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) terminated its previous order for the Navy Federal Credit Union to return $80 million to customers who had been charged illegal overdraft fees.
Today a group of 193 civil rights, community, consumer, labor, faith-based, small business, farm, and other organizations urged the Senate to stand up for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and oppose devastating attacks on its budget and independence in the budget reconciliation bill.
Faith leaders, union members, and consumer advocates rallied outside CFPB headquarters on June 5 with a unified message to Congress: gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget is a direct attack on the people that the CFPB protects every day.
AFREF sent a letter to the CFPB opposing proposed rescissions that would create blanket confidentiality for all CFPB orders and decisions about non-bank supervisory determinations that would strip away transparency for some of the riskiest and least regulated nonbank financial products.
AFREF sent a letter to the CFPB opposing its proposal to rescind a repeat offender database of nonbank enforcement and agency orders. This will help state and federal regulators, advocates, and the public identify repeat offenders and more easily spot patterns and practices of misconduct.
The Republican Congress has proposed severe budget cuts to the CFPB that prevents the agency from fulfilling its statutory mandates to protect people. The attempt to shut down the CFPB protects powerful banks, predatory lenders, and tech billionaires instead of standing up for people all to help pay for tax cuts for the rich.
Earlier this week, the Trump CFPB withdrew the agency’s previously proposed data broker rule, which would have limited how our sensitive and private financial data is collected, used, and sold. With little to no other regulation over data brokers, the withdrawal of this rule will allow companies to collect and sell our private and sensitive financial data to third party strangers without oversight or accountability.
“Dropping cases like this against Heights Finance, where a predatory lender was picking the pockets of working class people, signals that it’s okay to pick on the little guy,” Zinner said.
Last week, the Trump CFPB announced plans to stop enforcing its previously issued Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) interpretive rule, which improves the price transparency of these loans to help people understand the real costs, fees, and charges that can accrue. This step risks amplifying the harms of BNPL loans, which include lower credit scores, lost bank accounts, and predatory fees. And it represents yet another example of the Trump CFPB actively siding with predatory lenders.