Reining in Wall Street

OUR FISCAL FUTURE

For years, federal bank regulators ignored numerous warnings of increasingly predatory mortgage practices, credit card tricks, and unfair overdraft policies used by the big Wall Street banks. They also ignored warnings of risky securities being packaged and sold to investors. In the wake of the resulting financial crisis, U.S. PIRG fought to pass the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Since winning federal Wall Street reform, we’ve been working to defend those reforms from the industry’s attempts to defang, defund or delay them — in particular the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the centerpiece of the law.

We’re working to:

Put consumers and taxpayers before big banks: Check irresponsible financial practices with new rules and stronger, independent enforcement by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Cover all players and transactions: Rein in hedge funds and reckless investments that escaped regulations and traded without oversight on “shadow markets.”
Control corporations that are “too big to fail”: Banks shouldn’t be able to freely gamble with taxpayer money covering their bets. We must rein in institutions whose risky investments threaten the larger economy.

In short, we’re fighting for a financial regulatory system that guarantees that consumers and taxpayers are protected from the predatory practices at the heart of this problem. And we need to provide consumers a seat at the table when it comes to oversight of the nation’s financial system.

Issue updates

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

New York Times is running a bank fees debate, seeks comments | Ed Mierzwinski

Over at the New York Times, you can join a debate on bank fees. Meanwhile, the CFPB has extended its comment period seeking your views on overdraft fees until June 29.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

CFPB to announce mortgage servicing rules and other consumer news of the week | Ed Mierzwinski

(Update: phottos added.) Today, U.S. PIRG will be an invited guest as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposes new mortgage servicing rules to prevent, among other things, a recurrence of the robo-signing scandal. Among the other important news items of the week, in case you missed it, Ohio has made it harder for aggrieved consumers to obtain redress when ripped off.

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

Corporate crime update: Phone companies stop cramming, but banks still run amok | Ed Mierzwinski

The industry trade paper American Banker is reporting that "Bank of America Sold Card Debts to Collectors Despite Faulty Records" in 2009 and 2010. Good to know. It confirms previous consumer group studies that had documented that big banks were forcing consumers to arbitrate and pay "debts" that may not have been owed (some were due to identity theft or sloppy records). However, in the latest fallout from a U.S. Senate Commerce committee investigation of unauthorized third-party billing on phone bills (cramming), Chairman Jay Rockefeller has announced that ATT has joined other big telcos in finally promising to drop the tawdry practice of "cramming," which is a technical term meaning "making big bucks by allowing fly-by-night firms selling useless junky products consumers don't want and didn't buy to use phone bills as cash registers."

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Blog Post | Financial Reform

FTC releases major report recommending privacy reforms | Ed Mierzwinski

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today released a major report on consumer privacy. From FTC -- "In the report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers,” the FTC also recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation."

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Senate Rolls Back Investor Protections

Statement of Edmund Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director on Senate Passage of the JOBS Act (Excerpt) "Today, the Senate joined the House in passing the so-called JOBS Act, legislation that will roll back investor protections, leaving senior citizens and other small investors at the mercy of the next Enron collapse, the next Gordon Gecko and the next-generation boiler room operators using social media to pitch toxic investments."

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News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Senate Rolls Back Investor Protections

Statement of Edmund Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG Consumer Program Director on Senate Passage of the JOBS Act (Excerpt) "Today, the Senate joined the House in passing the so-called JOBS Act, legislation that will roll back investor protections, leaving senior citizens and other small investors at the mercy of the next Enron collapse, the next Gordon Gecko and the next-generation boiler room operators using social media to pitch toxic investments."

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

U.S. PIRG Applauds CFPB Proposal To Regulate Biggest Credit Bureaus

“Last summer over 10,000 PIRG members submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) urging strict regulation of credit bureaus and credit scoring firms. We applaud the CFPB for its proposal today to subject the nation’s largest credit bureaus and credit scoring firms to full scrutiny as “larger participants” (CFPB pdf) in the financial marketplace."

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

Robo-Signing Settlement With Big Banks Is Important Step

Today's settlement by the U.S. and 49 state attorneys general with the 5 biggest mortgage servicers - the big banks Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, along with Ally Financial - is an important and enforceable first step toward holding the big banks accountable for not only wrecking the economy but using a variety of unfair foreclosure practices to ruin the lives of millions of Americans and, in many cases, taking their homes illegally.

News Release | U.S. PIRG | Financial Reform

U.S. PIRG Applauds President For “Bold and Important” Recess Appointment of Richard Cordray To Head New Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

President Obama is taking a bold and important step to protect consumers from financial tricks and traps by announcing a recess appointment of his well-qualified nominee, Richard Cordray, to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Media Hit | Financial Reform

LA Times: Richard Cordray Appointment 'Turns Lights On' at Consumer Bureau

"Congress wanted the bureau to protect consumers no matter where they shopped for financial products," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "With a director, the public can now have confidence the consumer bureau is ready, willing and able to investigate their financial problems."

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Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Financial Reform

Ten Reasons Why We Need the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now

This report outlines predatory financial practices that hurt consumers and helped collapse the economy, costing us eight million jobs, millions of foreclosed homes and trillions of dollars in lost home and retirement values. It explains these and other emerging problems as “10 Reasons We Need The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Now.”

Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Financial Reform

Big Banks, Bigger Fees

Over the last six months, PIRG staff conducted inquiries at 392 bank branches in 21 states and reviewed bank fees online in 12 others.

Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Financial Reform

Bailout Report Card

U.S. PIRG released a report card on how the bailout had been handled by the administration in terms of transparency and accountability.

Report | U.S. PIRG Education Fund | Financial Reform

Halfway to the CFPB

The CFPB Implementation Team staff are making significant progress in their efforts to both build an effective agency and be ready to perform required functions by the transfer date (July 21, 2011).

Blog Post | Financial Reform

New York Times is running a bank fees debate, seeks comments | Ed Mierzwinski

Over at the New York Times, you can join a debate on bank fees. Meanwhile, the CFPB has extended its comment period seeking your views on overdraft fees until June 29.

Add new comment

Blog Post | Financial Reform

CFPB to announce mortgage servicing rules and other consumer news of the week | Ed Mierzwinski

(Update: phottos added.) Today, U.S. PIRG will be an invited guest as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposes new mortgage servicing rules to prevent, among other things, a recurrence of the robo-signing scandal. Among the other important news items of the week, in case you missed it, Ohio has made it harder for aggrieved consumers to obtain redress when ripped off.

Add new comment

Blog Post | Financial Reform

Corporate crime update: Phone companies stop cramming, but banks still run amok | Ed Mierzwinski

The industry trade paper American Banker is reporting that "Bank of America Sold Card Debts to Collectors Despite Faulty Records" in 2009 and 2010. Good to know. It confirms previous consumer group studies that had documented that big banks were forcing consumers to arbitrate and pay "debts" that may not have been owed (some were due to identity theft or sloppy records). However, in the latest fallout from a U.S. Senate Commerce committee investigation of unauthorized third-party billing on phone bills (cramming), Chairman Jay Rockefeller has announced that ATT has joined other big telcos in finally promising to drop the tawdry practice of "cramming," which is a technical term meaning "making big bucks by allowing fly-by-night firms selling useless junky products consumers don't want and didn't buy to use phone bills as cash registers."

Add new comment

Blog Post | Financial Reform

FTC releases major report recommending privacy reforms | Ed Mierzwinski

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today released a major report on consumer privacy. From FTC -- "In the report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers,” the FTC also recommends that Congress consider enacting general privacy legislation, data security and breach notification legislation, and data broker legislation."

Add new comment

Blog Post | Financial Reform

Investor rights on chopping block in U.S. Senate (updated) | Ed Mierzwinski

(See updates (click Keep Reading): Today, the U.S. Senate will consider the House-passed "JOBS" Act, which weakens investor protections -- many passed after the Internet bubble burst and Enron's follow-on bankruptcy destroyed jobs and retirement savings. Its supporters claim the bill to make it easier for small companies to navigate SEC rules and thereby promote small company growth (which theoretically creates, you guessed it, jobs), has already been thoroughly vetted. Yet, the bill is opposed by some of the Senate's most thoughtful investor champions and opposed by U.S. PIRG and numerous consumer and investor organizations. We support a substitute to be offered by Senators Jack Reed (RI), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Carl Levin (MI) because it protects investors. But if the substitute fails to get 60 votes, the JOBS Act will be non-amendable under an ill-advised special fast-track system set up to speed it through.

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