As the Senate today continues debate on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) credit card reform proposal, Dodd’s 2010 GOP opponent, former Connecticut Rep. Rob Simmons, just issued a statement asking the Banking Committee chairman a biting question: What took you so long?
Credit card reform is long overdue and if Sen.
Senate banking leaders have wrangled a bipartisan deal over controversial legislation reining in the credit card industry, setting the stage this week for likely passage of new consumer protections in the midst of a tough economy where card companies are hiking rates to bolster profits.
The Senate compromise — worked More…
Last week, as the Senate was poised to kill legislation allowing homeowners the option of bankruptcy to prevent foreclosure, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) provided a grave assessment of Congress’ relationship with the finance industry.
“The banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re More…
David Lazarus at The Los Angeles Times asks a question I’ve been wondering about myself: What are some credit card companies thinking?
Lazarus points specifically to American Express, which seems to be going overboard in its eagerness to pare customers who might pose default risks. The problem is that More…
It’s all credit cards, all day long. And Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Banking Committee went on MSNBC, this afternoon to reiterate his earlier call for the Federal Reserve to prevent credit card companies from hiking rates on existing balances — something Congress is now More…
No surprise that President Obama’s top economic adviser Larry Summers was among those gathered at today’s White House meeting with credit card executives. But is it too much to expect that he would stay awake through the discussion?
Short answer: yes.
From the pool report:
We just put up a piece about how the Democrats’ legislative efforts to make credit cards more consumer friendly have been delayed, likely until July 2010, when new consumer protections crafted by the Federal Reserve will be installed anyway. It was probably inevitable that the banks would try to More…
It’s one of the central components of the Democrats’ plans for reforming the finance industry this year, and among the most vital, supporters say, for protecting consumers from abusive lending practices in a tumbledown economy. Yet as Congress advances legislation reining in the most abusive credit card traps, both the More…
Even before she poses her first question to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner when he testifies before her panel for the first time today, expect Troubled Asset Relief Program oversight head Elizabeth Warren to come under fire. That’s because conservatives have been gunning for Warren, who was an outspoken advocate for More…
This should have happened a long time ago: Banks that received government bailout money and continue to charge consumers excessive fees on credit cards and other services are getting a second look, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The committee overseeing federal banking-bailout programs is investigating the lending practices of
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