Bankers, lobbyists, elected officials uttered some choice words on 2018’s bank deregulation legislation and the impact of mid-sized banks on financial stability that belong in any good collection of famous last words.
Americans for Financial Reform submitted today a statement for the record for the joint House Financial Services/Agriculture Committees’ subcommittee hearing on digital assets entitled, “The Future of Digital Assets: Closing the Regulatory Gaps in the Digital Asset Ecosystem.”
AFR led a coalition letter to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee ahead of their hearing titled “Holding Executives Accountable for Recent Bank Failures.” The letter calls for mandatory clawbacks of incentive-based executive compensation and gains from stock trades in cases of bank failure.
Washington, D.C. – New Congressional hearings today on crypto regulation will likely fail to adequately address the many risks that the industry posed to consumers, investors and financial markets by crypto assets and actors, according to advocates with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress.
AFR, Center for Responsible Lending and Consumer Federation of America led a letter to Congress opposing a package of bills that undermine the CFPB.
A new stablecoins bill proposal being discussed today in Congress would fail to adequately address the many risks that the industry posed to consumers, investors and financial markets, according to Americans for Financial Reform, Demand Progress and a dozen consumer protection groups. The bill is a focus of today’s hearing held by the House Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion.
AFREF joined partner organizations to express concerns about the grave risks stablecoins pose to households and our financial system and urged the Committee to take the utmost care to not advance legislation that will increase these risks by expanding the reach of stablecoins without providing adequate protections. The letter highlights many elements that make the bill inefficient in providing adequate protections for consumers, investors, and financial markets.
Congressional Republicans have moved on to their next target for financial deregulation: Republicans in Congress and the consumer finance industry want to eliminate or hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency has provided $16 billion in restitution or cancelled debt to 192 million consumers since the agency began operation in 2010. It’s one of the few institutions, public or private, that has earned Americans’ confidence in a long time.
AFREF, the Institute for Policy Studies, Global Economy Project, and Public Citizen led a letter with 22 additional signatories to the agencies tasked with implementing section 956 of Dodd-Frank. That section tasked six agencies with promulgating regulations to prevent incentive-based executive compensation that encourages “inappropriate risk” by May 2011. Almost 12 years later, we don’t have a final rule. The letter was sent to regulators ahead of congressional hearings that will examine recent bank failures.
AFR joined a letter urging appropriators to make bold new investments in the Pell Grant program.