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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - May 3, 2010
Financial Reform Bill 101: What it Means for Consumers
by: Peter Grier
The Christian Science Monitor
Washington ? The big financial reform bill now under
consideration in the Senate is about more than
collateralized back-flip derivatives and other stuff
you have to be an MBA to understand. It could also
affect how average Americans acquire credit cards,
mortgages, bank accounts, and other ordinary features
of modern monetary life.
Specifically, it would change who (or what) is supposed to
protect you from being cheated when you sign up for complex
financial products. Because after all, who really reads
all the fine print that comes with credit card applications
and mortgage loans?
Right now, a number of different government agencies
regulate various kinds of consumer financial goods. Under
the Senate bill as it stands at the beginning of the floor
debate, a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection would
unite these groups. Think of it as a cousin to the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security, which was created by bundling
together various existing US law enforcement organizations.
This new bureau would focus only on what's good for consum-
ers, and not on whether banks, say, are making enough money
to stay in business. Its objectives would include ensuring
the public gets timely and clear information, so you can
make informed decisions about important financial moves;
and protecting you from abusive or deceptive or discrimina-
tory practices.
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The Senate would make this new consumer bureau part of the
Federal Reserve. The House version of the legislation sets
it up as a completely independent agency, on the theory
that this would allow it better to focus on its mission.
But the Fed finances itself by its own activities, so tuck-
ing a Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection under its
wing means the bureau won't have to worry about Congress
voting on its budget, among other things.
The Fed's governors won't be able to block or delay the new
consumer bureau's work, according to Senate legislative
language. The "BCFP" would be run by an executive director,
appointed by the president to a five-year term.
The bureau would maintain a toll-free number and a website
to collect consumer complaints, according to the Senate
bill. It would also have a staff to follow-up on complaints
deemed serious.
It would have an Office of Financial Literacy, charged with
developing a strategy to improve what US citizens know
about the often-mystifying world of money.
But the heart of its work would be oversight of a host
of existing Federal consumer financial laws, from the
Electronic Fund Transfer Act, to the Fair Debt Collection
Practices Act, to the Truth in Lending Act, to a string
of laws related to mortgages and real estate settlement
procedures.
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The bureau would have broad leeway to write new rules and
regulations implementing these laws. But it could exercise
enforcement power only over big banks and credit unions
with at least $10 billion in assets, as well as large
nonbank financial companies, and most nonbank mortgage
companies.
Some professions would be exempt from bureau scrutiny,
per bill language. These include real estate agents,
accountants, lawyers, and many retailers. But some
Republicans complain that this new entity could wield
too much power over small businesses that are simply
extending credit to customers. They hope to make changes
to the bureau's powers via amendment during the upcoming
floor debate.
However, remittance transfer providers ? those stores and
people who help immigrant workers send money back home ?
might face a crackdown of sorts. The bill would require
these money changers to post daily signs showing how much
local currency will end up in the hands of transfer
recipients for each $100 and $200 sent from the US.
The importance that the authors of financial regulation
legislation place on this new consumer bureau can be seen
in the fact that the provisions dealing with it take up
close to 25 percent of the entire 1,400 page bill. The
legislation's authors are trying to avoid a repeat of the
hot years of the US housing bubble, when lenders were hand-
ing out sub-prime mortgages to people who could not afford
them or did not understand them, setting up thousands to
fall into the credit pit of foreclosure.
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