In the letter from 138 undersigned consumer, civil rights, community, housing, labor, small business, and other public interest groups: Commissioner Chopra is exactly the type of leader we need to serve as the next CFPB director. His commitment to consumer protection, effectiveness at using the tools of government to serve the public interest, and willingness to challenge powerful corporate interests when necessary are exactly what the Bureau needs to fulfill its crucial consumer protection mission. He is dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable financial marketplace for all consumers and...
Consumer Finance
CRL monitors developments across the consumer finance sector and acts to protect people’s pocketbooks from financial misconduct so families can build financial stability. This includes advocating for enforcement of laws banning discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, and other protected characteristics. CRL also fights to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a crucial government watchdog that was established in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis to stop predatory practices.
Filter Results
From the amicus brief: Unpaid court debt balloons over time as fines and the costs of collection accrue; low-income people risk wage garnishment, asset forfeiture, loss of credit, and even incarceration as collateral consequences of their continued entanglement with the criminal justice system. These burdens fall most heavily on people of color, who are arrested and placed on probation at disproportionate rates compared to white people.
Our comment discusses ECOA’s purpose, the importance of disparate impact theory, issues around artificial intelligence and machine learning models, special purpose credit programs, preemption, and small business lending. Additionally, CRL signed on to a detailed letter from the Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) Language Access Taskforce regarding the challenges in serving limited English proficient consumers.
Ten years after the Great Recession, the current economic contraction is again hitting Black and Brown communities and lower-wage workers the hardest – many of whom have never recovered. This crisis is worsening long-standing and growing racial and economic inequities at the very moment of national reckoning with the historic need for their redress. Too often, predatory financial services and products prevent families and small businesses from accessing opportunities and instead impede their ability to reduce poverty and close the racial wealth gap. Bold action to curb predatory lending and...
Opportunity in America has never been evenly distributed, but the gains made over the last 100 years are at risk if a conservative Justice is added to the Supreme Court. Just like the many social issues already being covered in the wake of President Trump’s Supreme Court nomination, the nine justices who fill the seats of America’s highest court will profoundly impact the daily financial lives and futures of hardworking families. In addition to healthcare access, reproductive rights, and many other issues, over the next several years the Supreme Court will make important and lasting decisions...
Ten years after passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, with the country again facing an economic crisis, new polling data from Lake Research Partners, commissioned by the Center for Responsible Lending and Americans for Financial Reform shows that voters across all political parties are broadly and intensely supportive of strong consumer financial protections and of tough regulation of the financial services industry. Download the: Polling memo Toplines Time series
Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, court fines and fees, and other monetary sanctions overly burdened young people and adults involved in the criminal legal system with debt from pre-trial through post-release and beyond. A few months into the crisis, we are seeing that Black and Brown communities are disproportionately facing economic challenges. This is reflected in national unemployment data, where May 2020 unemployment rates were 24.3% and 25% for Black and Hispanic workers, respectively, compared to 16.1% for White workers. Due to over-policing and over-incarceration, these same communities...
CRL joined with more than 400 organizations to call on Congress to pass meaningful police reform legislation: Abusive police practices coupled with devastating state-sanctioned violence have exacted systemic brutality and fatality upon Black people since our nation’s founding. The current protests across our country are not new. They are in response to a long cycle of lawlessness against Black people, from our founding to 1968, the year the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. was murdered. This cycle includes deadly incidents spanning from Los Angeles in 1992 to Ferguson in 2014. Police have...
This comment includes examples that are intended to be illustrative of the kinds of issues confronting low-to-middle-income households and communities of color attempting to navigate the consumer finance system.
CRL is working to monitor the unfolding developments of the COVID-19 pandemic and its financial and economic effects on LMI communities and communities of color. As the response to the crisis continues, CRL is advocating for strong consumer protections and financial relief for the consumers, workers and small businesses that are always among the hardest hit by any national emergency or economic downturn. This situation is rapidly developing. We will continue to update this page with related statements, articles, and resources. CRL Policy Recommendations Financial Implications of the Criminal...