“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.”
“The dispute over the CFPB is the latest attempt by business interests to limit the scope of Dodd-Frank. Backed by Wall Street and corporate lobbyists, Republicans in Congress have tried to roll back various provisions of the law. That effort has so far failed, and now the courts have become an alternative venue for the campaign. ‘The financial industry is using all the tools available to resist the regulation mandated under Dodd-Frank,’ says Brian Marshall, policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform…”
“About half of all online payday loan customers end up paying fees ($185 is the average amount) triggered by failed debit attempts. Some lenders keep on trying to collect in even when there is likely to be no effect other than to increase the cost to the borrower. Some companies will even break a payment into multiple smaller amounts, submitting three $100 requests, for example, instead of one $300 request. A third of the customers hit with such penalties end up having their bank accounts closed involuntarily.”
“Brian Marshall, policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform… contends that if PHH’s concern is really that the president lacks sufficient authority over a federal agency, a multi-member structure should be even more problematic. ‘To get control of the Federal Trade Commission, a president would have to remove three commissioners — and that is virtually impossible,’ he said.”
What made the latest congressional hearings on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau different from other hearings? A delegation of consumer advocates from around the country wearing lime-green t-shirts that said “Stand Up for the CFPB” and “The CFPB Has My Back.” They were there to remind lawmakers that the great majority of Americans, across party lines, don’t just like the idea of such an agency; they also support the major steps it has taken to bring a sense of fair play to the financial marketplace.
In the audience at the House Financial Services Committee’s semi-annual CFPB review hearing this morning, you’ll see a delegation of community leaders and consumer advocates from around the country wearing lime-green t-shirts and signs that say, “The CFPB Has Our Back.”
“Repeat a preposterous story often enough, and maybe someday you’ll get a few people to believe it. That could be the theory behind the campaign to depict the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as an NSA-style spy agency and a threat to liberty.”
“We support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) acquisition and analysis of commercial databases to help it ensure the public is fairly treated by the financial marketplace.
As leaders of consumer and privacy organizations, we agree that the CFPB needs to use the wide range of data available to financial institutions and services in order to identify best practices and necessary safeguards.”
“Those who backed the CFPB’s creation and support its work overwhelmingly agree that one director is the preferred structure. Those who push hardest for a change to a commission opposed the creation of a consumer protection agency at the outset. Consumer advocates are united in their support for the current structure. This is not a case of the public demanding “reform.” Rather, it is a campaign manufactured by the very Wall Street banks, payday lenders, and other financial firms the CFPB was created to regulate. We urge you to defend a strong CFPB and to reject proposals to change the leadership structure, weaken the funding, narrow the authority, or otherwise hobble the effectiveness of this crucially important agency.”
Today, CREDO Action, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, USAction and USPIRG delivered petitions in which more than 200,000 Americans told Congress not to let the budget process be used as a vehicle for backdoor financial deregulation.