The House majority today chose to give Wall Street banks free reign to charge outrageous overdraft junk fees and to abandon oversight of payment apps run by Big Tech and Elon Musk. Along partisan lines, the House voted to roll back two popular safeguards created by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Already passed by the Senate, the measures now go to President Trump to be signed into law.
The #HandsOff demonstrations on April 5 included many different people, organizations, and causes, all united in an effort to stop the Trump administration’s destruction of the federal government and American democracy. Americans for Financial Reform was among the groups that supported the effort, with a particular focus on one subject: “Hands Off Our CFPB.”
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) submitted a comment letter supporting a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) to provide relief to victims of coerced debt
Congressional Republicans are showing their Big Tech true colors. Today, House Republicans will push to repeal a commonsense rule that requires payment apps like Cash App and PayPal to follow the same consumer protection rules as the payment apps the banks offer.
Today, 187 community, technology, labor, civil rights, privacy, consumer, small business, and other organizations delivered a letter urging the U.S. House of Representatives to oppose a resolution to rescind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) digital payment app oversight rule.
Christine Chen Zinner, a senior lawyer at Americans for Financial Reform, a progressive advocacy group, called the consumer bureau’s attempt to overturn the settlement “bananacakes.” The appellate panel’s unanimous decision that the fair-lending law applied was a clear signal that the case had merit, she said.
The House Financial Services Committee Financial Institutions Subcommittee convened a hearing today that will do little but air the grievances of the banking lobby over the highly effective work done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to prevent another financial crisis, and for the past 14 years it has diligently served the public, held financial firms accountable, cracked down on junk fees, and protected people from financial rip-offs. The vehemence of the Wall Street, Big Tech, and predatory financial industry’s attacks on the CFPB are a testament to its effectiveness in successfully standing up for people.
This week, Republicans in Congress introduced a resolution to undo a Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) rule that prevents medical debt from capsizing people’s credit scores. More than 100 million people have medical debt and it shows up on the credit reports of 15 million people.
The Trump administration has joined a group of big banks in an effort to destroy a vital safeguard against credit card junk fees that would have saved consumers $10 billion per year. As documented by AFR’s Wall Street Ripoff Counter, every day this CFPB rule is not in place, credit card users lose $2.7 million. To date, the bank lawsuit and now the Trump administration actions have cost consumers over $8.3 billion.