Research

Financial companies are lobbying hard to strip states' rights to make and enforce consumer protection rules, but states must stay on the front lines of fighting predatory lending.

In a letter to the Treasury Department, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced its support for financial reform, including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, to protect its service members and their families from predatory car dealers. A DoD poll of its financial counselors found that the majority had counseled service members on issues such as "bait and...

The Military Coalition expressed opposition via letter to the Senate Banking Committee about exempting car dealers from the financial reform bill on April 15 2010. The Department of Defense wrote a similar letter in February 2010 because car dealers have abused servicemembers.

Here's a quick reference on what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would do, what it wouldn't do, and the most important parts of proposed financial reform legislation to help ensure strong consumer protections.

Chief Consumer Watchdog arrives in 2012 President Obama names former Ohio Attorney General as CFPB Director America's consumers now have a top cop in a wide range of financial affairs. Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general and state treasurer was appointed by President Obama to become the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). After the greatest...

Provision Senate Bureau of Consumer Protection House Consumer Financial Protection Agency Administration Consumer Financial Protection Agency Presidentially Appointed Director Yes, confirmed by the Senate. Yes, confirmed by the Senate. Yes, confirmed by the Senate. Independent source of funding Yes, from the Federal Reserve Board budget. Yes, from the Federal Reserve Board budget. Yes, with fees on "entities and transactions" within...

Read our report (PDF) >> Our nation's largest banks extract billions of dollars in fees from their customers each year through abusive overdraft loan programs. Over the last ten years, these programs developed and proliferated under the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the national banks' primary regulator. The OCC recognized problems with the systems early on but...

Download our report "Mainstream Banks Making Payday Loans" (PDF) UPDATE April 2010. A spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency told a reporter that the loans described in this report are not payday loans -- that the OCC has no problem with banks making them. "It's not a payday loan. It's available through banks and bank branches...

A few provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act that President Obama signed into law May 2009 took effect immediately, and a few didn't take effect until August of that year. But most of the provisions took effect February 22, 2010. While these new rules are a significant improvement from the status quo that pervaded credit card...