Cryptocurrency promises a high-tech opportunity to make buckets of money, but like most get-rich-quick schemes, rip-offs are ubiquitous. The crypto industry is rife with scams, hustles akin to stock swindles, cyberbreaches, and other crimes that can easily separate investors and consumers from their money.
New report providing a snapshot of how every member of Congress voted on consumer protections, climate financial regulation, Wall Street, and financial industry legislative measures during the first session of the 118th Congress.
The bills coerce financial actors to ignore critical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in investment decisions. This approach can only benefit corporate boards and fossil fuel interests at the expense of workers, investors, and long-term sustainability.
The cryptocurrency bill passed by dozens of House Democrats and most Republicans at the behest of a free-spending industry lobby lacks effective protections for consumers, establishes weak rules for this fraud-ridden industry and contains loopholes that could undermine regulatory safeguards for all investors and consumers. The influx of crypto political spending this election year – notably millions in negative ads in California’s Senate primary – loomed large in this vote. Crypto super PACs, largely financed by a handful of wealthy Silicon Valley tech donors, have pledged to spend tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars this election cycle.
The House Financial Services Committee voted to overturn a regulation capping credit card late fees, putting a majority of its members squarely on the side of big banks that have ripped off consumers for years. The new rule, finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on March 5, would reduce the typical late fee on credit cards from $35 to $8, saving consumers $10 billion each year. For the 45 million households that pay late fees, that amounts to an annual savings of $220.
Americans for Financial Reform made the following comments on item marked up by the House Financial Services Committee yesterday, On the bills related to climate and financial regulation, On the bills related to fintech regulation, On the bills related to systemic risk
AFR led a letter signed by 84 national, state, and local groups ranging from civil rights, consumer protection, labor unions, antitrust, and general public interest groups voicing our collective support for the work and mission of the CFPB. In the letter we highlight the importance of an agency dedicated solely to consumer protection and the work the CFPB has done to make customers whole after harm was done. We again push back on the agenda to limit the agency’s effectiveness by subjecting the agency to annual appropriations, changing its leadership structure to a commission, and the most recent proposal to raise the asset threshold for companies under the CFPB’s supervision to $50 billion from the current $10 bn threshold.
AFR sent a letter to members of Congress opposing several capital markets bills that fail to address the inherent lack of information and protections in investing in private offerings while opening the door for more investors to have access to such products by using these proposed pathways to become an “accredited investor”.
AFR sent a letter opposing H.R. 3556 “Increasing Financial Regulatory Accountability and Transparency Act,” a bill supposedly to make the Fed more transparent, which will instead hamstring the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s (“FSOC”) ability to effectively monitor risk in the financial system. This bill would subject the FSOC’s designation authority to Congressional review, which would allow any firm the FSOC designates as systemically important to lobby Congress to rescind the FSOC’s designation. This would render the FSOC designation authority under the Dodd-Frank Act futile and unnecessarily politicize the agency’s efforts to monitor companies that pose an outsized risk to our financial system. This bill comes at the heels of the FSOC’s announcement to reinvigorate its designation process, a welcome step in preventing the next financial crisis.
AFR submitted this letter in opposition to H.R. 3564, which would make mortgages more expensive for many middle-class American families. H.R. 3564 would rescind the FHFA’s more equitable mortgage pricing framework and instead require the FHFA to increase fees for many first-time home buyers and those who do not have a 20% down payment.