Tag Archives: Treasury

Letter to the Regulators: AFREF Comments to Department of Treasury Regarding Request for Information on AI in Financial Services

AFREF submitted a comment regarding a request for information on uses, opportunities, and risks of artificial intelligence in the financial services sector. The comment notes that while artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning and generative models, could potentially transform the financial services industry, insufficiently robust AI regulatory oversight and supervision can harm consumers by amplifying discriminatory patterns in credit markets, increasing consumer costs, and creating barriers to accessible credit. To address these harms, federal regulators should pursue a rights-based and not solely a risk-based approach.

News Release: Treasury, FTC, and CFPB Announce Pivotal Interagency Effort to Promote Safer Solar Lending

The U.S. Department of the Treasury, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a critical interagency effort that aims to protect consumers from solar fraud and scams, clamp down on bad actors and practices in the industry, promote safe green lending that can benefit consumers and responsible solar businesses, and mitigate climate change. This move comes as more consumers are being marketed and offered loans and leases for green products and projects, due in part to new federal financial incentives that make them more affordable

Letters to Regulators: Letter to Treasury, OCC, FRB and FDIC on the Need to Fight Bank Consolidation

The President has made it clear: it’s time to fight consolidation, not facilitate it. In reviewing lessons learned from this most recent banking crisis to better prevent the next one, the regulators must be full-throated and clear in their affirmation that robust regulation and competition, not consolidation, will lead to a healthier, safer, and more vibrant financial system. Banks must exist to serve the needs of the American people, not the other way around – and it is regulators’ critical task to ensure so. 

Letters to Regulators: Letters to the IRS and Treasury and the CFPB on Medical Debt

 AFREF joined two letters – one to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Treasury, and one to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – urging the Biden-Harris Administration to do more to relieve medical debt for tens of millions of people. The letters, signed by more than 60 organizations, include specific executive actions the administration can take to address medical debt.

the outside exterior of the U.S. Treasury Department building

Letters to Regulators: Letter to Secretary Yellen on Restoring FSOC’s Ability to Fully Execute its Authority Under Dodd Frank

AFREF and 30 allies sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging her to prioritize restoring FSOC’s ability to fully execute its authority under Dodd-Frank by repealing the SIFI 2019 guidance; developing a data strategy for OFR; and using the statutory authority given in Title I of Dodd-Frank to apply a racial equity lens when designating a non-bank financial company as a SIFI.

sunrise over a field of wind turbines

News Release: Treasury’s climate report light on specifics, regulators must go much farther, faster

The U.S. Treasury Department released its climate finance report on Thursday evening following a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) where members voted to approve the report. Though strong in some areas like climate risk disclosure and scenario analysis, the report largely highlights agency actions that are already underway, and it fails to lay out a comprehensive roadmap with specific recommendations and timelines for regulators to consider beyond the assessment and disclosure of climate risk, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and Public Citizen said.