“A funding measure approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday contains an outrageous sneak attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act. The FY2016 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill incorporates the entirety of a 229-page financial deregulation bill – one that had been rejected by every Democrat on the Banking Committee, the proper venue for such legislation.”
“The financial system that pushed the U.S. economy to the edge of collapse in 2008 was a doubly rigged game. It was set up to inflate the profits of banks and insiders twice over—first through products designed to bilk consumers and investors, and second through massive speculation, with taxpayers ultimately paying for the bets that went bad. It was a dishonest system and a dangerous one, and while Dodd-Frank was not a complete fix for either problem, it has made progress on both.”
“In addition to [a] dangerous and highly partisan rollback of financial regulations, the legislation takes aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that is succeeding at its job of making the consumer finance markets safer and fairer. The appropriations bill contains policy riders that would dramatically weaken the CFPB by making it the only bank regulator which does not have independent funding, and by replacing the CFPB’s single director with a five-member commission – a known recipe for gridlock.”
A new Lake Research poll, commissioned by Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending, finds strong, continued, bipartisan support for government regulation of financial services and products. In marked contrast to the typical trendline of public opinion after a disaster, this is
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now in a position to regulate the practice, a new poll shows strong public sentiment against the use of forced-arbitration clauses in consumer finance contracts. The poll demonstrates wide, bipartisan opposition to forced arbitration as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on a multi-agency appropriations bill that would put roadblocks in the way of CFPB action.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went live today with an important new feature of its complaint database. For the first time, the public now has access to accounts of actual consumer experiences. We applaud the CFPB for taking this step, which will vastly expand the value of its complaint system.”
In petitions gathered by AFR and five allied organizations, more than 78,000 consumers urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take swift action against the use of forced arbitration clauses in financial services and products. The CFPB is empowered by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 to ban or limit this anti-consumer device in products under its jurisdiction.
In a letter to Director Richard Cordray, 58 lawmakers urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to use its Dodd-Frank authority to prohibit financial services companies from forcing consumers to resolve disputes in private arbitration instead of court. The CFPB should heed their call, four public-interest groups, including AFR, said today.
“On behalf of Americans for Financial Reform we are writing to express our opposition to Senator Toomey’s Amendment 8, offered by Senator Toomey to Senator Shelby’s regulatory reform bill scheduled for mark-up on May 21.”