The FDIC’s ILC rule threatens state-level consumer protections, further erodes the traditional separation between banking and commerce, and jeopardizes the safety and soundness of the financial system and the economy as a whole.
AFR released policy recommendations to strengthen consumer financial protections and work towards reversing the damage caused by systemic racism, and products and systems that amplify inequality.
AFREF and Demand Progress submitted comments to the FDIC on setting standards for fintech companies.
The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Kathleen Kraninger, today announced the agency will strip out the core of a rule written and finalized under previous leadership that would shield consumers from debt trap payday and car-title loans. The decision will leave millions of people vulnerable to grave financial abuses at a time of economic crisis, and will harm people of color who are suffering higher rates of illness and of unemployment, and whom this industry targeted even before the pandemic.
Letter from over 90 groups calling on the CFPB to stop all regulatory activity unrelated to COVID-19 and take greater steps to protect consumers during the pandemic.
Letter calling on Congress to include consumer protections in COVID-19 relief
AFREF joined a letter to FHFA expressing that rather than imposing punitive measures on consumers, FHFA and Enterprises should use their authority and influence over the housing finance market to incentivize PACE lenders and state actors to enhance consumer protections and adopt policies that limit risk to the Enterprises.
The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear oral arguments on Tuesday, March 3, on Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The case is about whether the authority of this independent agency, led by a single director who can be removed only for cause, violates the separation of powers.
Kathleen Kraninger, the current director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told an audience of bankers at a November 2019 industry gathering that “you are really helping drive the agenda.” Unfortunately for the public and for consumer financial protection, the Kraninger agenda and the Wall Street lobby’s agenda are indeed all too similar. Since the Senate confirmed Kraninger on a party-line vote, she has steered the CFPB in an anti-consumer direction, making it easier for Wall Street and predatory lenders to rip people off and to discriminate against people of color.
“The CFPB is dropping the ball on enforcing and drafting federal rules to actually protect the public from rip offs and discrimination in lending,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “Creating and hiring a new task force stacked with industry representatives and ideological opponents of regulation is one more move that runs directly counter to the CFPB’s basic mission.”