Tag Archives: CFPB

News Release: Much Needed Workplace Payday Loan Rule Will Help Curb Predatory Loan Practices

Today’s interpretative rule by the Consumer Financial Product Bureau on workplace payday loans (or the so-called Earned Wage Access products) will clearly label these products as loans, subjecting them to the laws, disclosures, and protections that consumers deserve if they choose products that are effectively high-cost loans. As a result of this proposal, companies offering these loans will have to follow basic rules such as the 55-year-old Truth in Lending Act to disclose the annual percentage rate of these loans.

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News Release: CFPB Proposed Rule Requiring Language Access in Mortgage Servicing Will Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure

The Language Access Task Force of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of fair housing and civil rights organizations, applauds Wednesday’s announcement from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposing rules that would ensure that borrowers with limited English proficiency (LEP) have a meaningful opportunity to seek assistance from their mortgage companies in times of distress, helping them stay in their homes. The proposal, which includes additional improvements to the general hardship assistance process, follows a petition from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) urging the Bureau to include language access in the mortgage rule.

In The News: Conservatives set the stage for another CFPB funding fight (The Hill)

Christine Zinner, senior consumer policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, suggested that the financial services industry is “really scraping the bottom of the barrel” with the latest arguments. “Wall Street and predatory lenders will never give up trying to stop the CFPB,” she said in a statement. “An agency devoted to fighting such powerful interests will never be home free.”

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Statement: To the House Financial Services Committee Hearing On “The Semi-Annual Report of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection”

Americans for Financial Reform appreciates the opportunity to provide a Statement for the Record for the House Financial Services Committee Hearing on “The Semi-Annual Report of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.” In the thirteen years since its creation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has and continues to vigorously protect consumers, increase marketplace transparency, and end unfair business practices through impactful rulemakings and enforcement actions.

Blog: Wall Street Lobby Surfaces New Nonsensical Legal Claim Over CFPB Funding

Last month the Supreme Court delivered a crushing defeat to Wall Street’s challenge to funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Undeterred, Wall Street is now trying to distort the Supreme Court’s decision to conjure up a new and utterly nonsensical argument about the legality of the CFPB’s funding. The trial balloon for this argument was launched in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Hal Scott, a retired Harvard Law professor and longtime industry shill whose specialty is neither consumer nor constitutional issues but international finance. Scott’s notion has already been swatted down by several credentialed legal experts of various political stripes.

News Release: Removal of Medical Debt From Credit Reports Will Curb Abuses

The proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to eliminate medical debt on credit reports would, if fully implemented, curb harmful practices such as distorted credit reports and abusive debt collection. As part of a broader initiative to improve the credit reporting system, the CFPB has proposed a new rule  that would stop credit reporting agencies from including medical debts and collection information on consumer credit reports, and prohibit the information from being  considered in underwriting decisions. The CFPB is now seeking public comment on this consumer protection proposal. 

Blog: CFPB Takes Action on Consumer Protection Violations in the Corporate Fine Print

When consumers purchase many financial products and services they have no say over specific terms and conditions, only the choice of whether to sign or not. Yet, hidden in the fine print in virtually every contract is another grave price consumers unwittingly pay: the removal of many of their legal rights and protections. If consumers want financial services, the fine print — and the proper regulation thereof — is critically important.

News Release: CFPB Database Expected to Help Curb Repeat Consumer Law Violations

A new centralized public database that catalogs violations of consumer protection laws by nonbank financial companies like payday lenders and debt collectors will aid state and federal enforcement efforts that often operate under the radar and are hard to track. The repeat misconduct registry will help remedy these regulatory blind spots and make it easier for regulatory agencies across the local, state, and federal levels to more easily spot bad actors. Members of the public, investors, creditors, business partners, and consumer advocacy organizations will also be able to more easily track financial firms subject to law enforcement orders due to repeat consumer violations.

In The News: Supreme Court rebuffs challenge to consumer protection agency (NBC)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who proposed that the bureau be created and helped set it up, welcomed the decision in a celebratory appearance outside the Supreme Court building… Consumer advocates and financial services industry critics expressed relief about Thursday’s ruling. “This decision removes a major threat to the agency’s work and reaffirms the independence that allows it to continue standing up for the public interest against abusive financial practices,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.

Event: Senator Warren, AFR, Celebrate Victory in CFPB Case on Supreme Court Steps

Americans for Financial Reform joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other coalition members on the steps of the Supreme Court Thursday to celebrate the Court’s favorable ruling in CFPB vs. CFSA, a case in which the payday lending lobby, with the support of Wall Street, sought to destroy the funding mechanism of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.