Groups Call for Real Protection for Borrowers, Tells New Jersey Bankers Association and Big Banks to Call Off the Dogs
Trenton, NJ -Community groups met in Trenton to call for an independent watchdog – a real watchdog with teeth – with a mandate to protect consumers from irresponsible, unethical and faulty financial products. President Obama called for Congress to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that will protect consumers from financial abuse as initially crafted by Elizabeth warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts.
New Jersey Citizen Action convened a press conference with a variety of grass roots organizations today to urge the New Jersey Congressional delegation to support the President’s proposal and to reject the efforts of big money Wall Street lobbyists that are actively opposing such an agency.
“When you buy a microwave for your kitchen or a toy or pajamas for your child, you have the security of knowing that someone has checked to make sure those products are not going to explode. We need the same security when we sign on the bottom line for a loan or a credit card,” said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, Executive Director of New Jersey Citizen Action. “For too long, the rules have been written and enforced for Wall Street, by Wall Street. Now Big Banks and trade associations are spending millions of dollars on a massive public relations and media campaign to keep things exactly the way they are. It’s time for the Big Banks and the New Jersey Bankers Association to call off the dogs and stop blocking real protection for ordinary Americans.”
“A watchdog agency will most likely not eliminate bad loan products, but it will create incentives for lenders to sell better ones – ones we all can understand easily. A watchdog agency will put a magnifying glass to the fine print and translate the financial mumbo jumbo into dollars and sense” continued Salowe-Kaye.
The New Jersey Bankers Association opposes the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, calling it “overkill”. It would like to see the same agencies that failed to enforce the existing consumer protection laws stay in charge. “That just doesn’t make sense.
We need a single independent agency with real enforcement powers to protect consumers”, emphasized Salowe-Kaye.
“For the first time, lenders will be required to report race, gender and other data for small business loans, as they are currently required to do for home mortgage loans” said Richard Barber, Chairman of the Economic Empowerment Committee of NJ NAACP. He continued that, “lenders will also be required to report data on their efforts to provide basic banking services through bank branches neighborhood by neighborhood.”
“Having a watchdog agency in place won’t absolve us from our responsibility of making good financial decisions, said, Fredrica Bey, Executive Director, WISOMMM Inc. “What we will have is the information we need to make good decisions and that information will be given to us in print big enough to read, in language normal people can understand.”
“Instead of bringing consumers more competition and lower prices, deregulation of the financial industry has brought heartache and financial ruin to millions of Americans. Financial institutions cannot be allowed to police themselves – the foreclosure nightmare is the most obvious result and the burgeoning credit card debt is another. Congress must adopt laws that prevent families from losing their homes and their lifesavings, as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency would help to do," said Staci Berger, director of policy and advocacy at the Housing and Community Development Network of NJ.
Jacob Koetsier, Advocate for NJ PIRG, urged our NJ congressional delegates not to be swayed by the 146 million that 6 trade associations have already spent on lobbying and campaign contributions in Washington, saying “The real reason these CEOs and bankers don’t want someone looking over their shoulder when they make sleazy loans and bad deals with working people is that they are worried that they would have to stop.”
“Unfortunately, the bill introduced into Congress on July 9th by Barney Frank, left the power to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act with the existing regulatory agencies, said Salowe-Kaye. “ Even so, I am hopeful that with the support of our NJ Congressional delegation the final bill will put those enforcement powers with the Consumer Financial Protection Agency as the President intended,” she stated.
