Earlier today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a proposal that brings much needed oversight and supervision to large providers of digital wallets and payment apps, also known as peer-to-peer or P2P apps.
AFR’s Senior Policy Analyst, Alexa Philo, testified Before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on economic policy.
“The administration’s order includes the recognition that the rapid growth of digital assets as instruments for financial speculation is creating a wide range of serious risks and harms for consumers, investors, and the public at large. It is important that the order recognizes and articulates a set of these risks, and a whole of government approach can help address the scale and scope of the potential harm. It will be important for the studies authorized by the order to generate useful data and momentum for decisive regulatory action,” said Mark Hays, senior policy analyst with AFR and Demand Progress.
Credit reports and credit scores play a critical role in the economic lives of Americans. They are the gatekeeper for affordable credit, insurance, rental housing, and sometimes unfortunately even a job. Yet they suffer from unacceptable rates of inaccuracy. This package would enact a sea change that would make the American credit reporting system more accurate and fairer to consumers.
Today, CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger is set to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee, marking her first oversight hearing since being narrowly confirmed last December. Kraninger will now have to answer to a new chair, Rep. Maxine Waters, and a majority that is demanding answers to why the agency has sided with the industry over consumers.
“The first five-and-a-half years of the CFPB’s history has vindicated the decisions that Congress made in 2010 to create a strong independent agency to protect consumers from fraud and abuse in the financial marketplace. …It’s action have begun to reform the industry by making banks andother financial services companies more attentive to consumers’ rights…”