CFPB Archives - Page 34 of 82 - Americans for Financial Reform

AFR Statement: Hensarling Plan Would Dramatically Weaken Financial Regulation

“[T]his plan doesn’t get tough on banks; it gets tough on the regulators policing them. It would dramatically weaken their ability to do their jobs, and make it correspondingly easier for Wall Street banks, shadow banks, and lending companies to profit by ripping off consumers and engaging in reckless and dangerous short term speculation, rather than by providing loans, capital, and financial services on fair and transparent terms.”

AFR Statement: Historic Opportunity to End Predatory Payday Lending

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has come out with a proposal for the first federal regulation of small-dollar consumer loans. This rulemaking could help millions of people and be a breakthrough in the struggle to end the abuses of triple-digit-interest, debt-trap lenders. To realize that potential, however, the CFPB will have to address what appear to be a number of weaknesses in this iteration.”

AFR Statement: House appropriations bill would “use backdoor means to achieve unpopular ends”

“In what has almost become an annual ritual, the 2017 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill set for mark-up in the House of Representatives today is packed with policy riders that would loosen rules, weaken agencies charged with protecting the public interest, and make it easier for Wall Street banks, shadow banks, and predatory lenders to take advantage of consumers and investors.”

AFR Statement: Study of car-title loans underscores need for payday rules

“Car-title loans, like payday loans, are often marketed as a source of short-term emergency credit; but they’re engineered, the CFPB’s research showed, to suck people into high-cost long-term debt. Only 12 percent of borrowers manage to repay their loans within the typical prescribed term of 30 days, according to the study, while fully 20 percent of borrowers end up losing their vehicles. The average borrower pays more in fees ($1,300) than the amount borrowed ($1,000).”

Letter to Congress: Don’t interfere with proposal to restore consumers’ class-action rights

“This rule is a crucial step to limit big banks’ and other financial companies’ efforts to escape liability if they break the law. Congressional or industry interference with the CFPB’s rulemaking process on forced arbitration would undermine consumer protection for critical financial products and services.”

AFR Statement: Skewed House hearing on arbitration

“Under the terms of the CFPB’s proposal, consumers and companies would remain perfectly free to resolve disputes through arbitration, but it would be a voluntary act on both sides. What the CFPB is seeking to regulate is involuntary arbitration, dictated and controlled by banks and financial companies through take it-or-leave-it contracts with consumers. More specifically, its proposal would bar companies from compelling consumers to sign away the right to join forces to challenge a practice that injures many people at once.”

AFR in the News: Google Removing Payday Loan Ads From Search Engine (NY Times)

“Google announced Wednesday that it would ban advertisements for payday loans and related products on its website, saying that they often lead to unaffordable repayment terms and financial harm to consumers… Lisa Donner, the executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement that Google’s new standards would stop abusive lenders from marketing what she described as ‘debt-trap products that do serious and lasting harm to consumers.’”

AFR Statement: Google sets an important example on payday loan ads

“To its considerable credit, Google has decided to stop running search ads for debt-trap payday loans. This decision, which follows a similar announcement by Facebook last year, closes off an important avenue of customer recruitment for an industry that is doing more and more of its business online. Payday loans, whether made through physical or virtual storefronts, are engineered to suck people into long-term triple-digit-interest debt, making their financial problems worse, not better.”

AFR Statement: A Major Step Toward Financial Industry Accountability

“’These clauses rob people not only of their constitutional right to go to court, but of the right to band together with others who have been damaged by the same corporate misconduct,’ said Lisa Donner, Executive Director of Americans for Financial Reform. ‘Each victim is compelled to go it alone, even if the cost of taking action far exceeds the damages in any individual case. Because the process often bars the parties from going public with their stories, forced arbitration serves as a way for companies to keep evidence of wrongdoing under wraps.'”

Joint Statement: Consumer Advocates Applaud CFPB Arbitration Proposal

“Consumer advocates commend the CFPB for taking this crucial step to limit big banks’ and other financial companies’ efforts to escape accountability for breaking the law, and urge the agency to use the full force of its authority to restore consumers’ right to choose how to resolve disputes with financial institutions in this, and every, context in the final rule.”