Consumer Issues/Safety/Products
The Coalition on Human Needs supports access to fair, safe and affordable financial products and services and effective consumer protections so that consumers can build assets and lead successful financial lives. CHN opposes practices that are unfair, deceptive, discriminatory or abusive or that undermine economic stability. CHN advocates for a strong, independent, and adequately funded Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and efforts by other federal, state and local agencies to protect consumers. CHN opposes any attempts to weaken the CFPB, including by ending its dedicated funding, changing its organizational structure from a single Director to a Commission, or removing or weakening its powers. CHN supports reforming the financial system built on inequality to advance policies that support wealth-building in Black, Latino and other communities that are disproportionately impacted by wealth extraction and discriminatory practices that bar access to the financial system in order to close the racial wealth gap. CHN supports efforts to advance racial justice and equity in the financial market, and CHN opposes discriminatory lending and financial services practices and policies that directly or indirectly perpetuate exclusion and segregation. In addition, CHN supports federal legislation to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination to ensure that future Administrations do not exclude LGBTQ people from protections against discrimination on the basis of sex. CHN opposes predatory lending (lending that is unaffordable or leads to a cycle of debt), and financial products and services that amplify inequality by targeting lower-income and vulnerable families and communities including communities of color with exploitative prices and fees or high interest rates. CHN supports vigorous enforcement of fair lending laws CHN opposes predatory conduct in higher education, that causes students to enroll and take on unaffordable student loan debt to attend low-value programs. CHN opposes cutting or privatizing Social Security or otherwise replacing some or all of Social Security benefits with private accounts. CHN supports a 36% federal interest rate cap that covers all lenders and types of credit, with a lower rate cap for larger loans, and opposes measures that enable high-cost lenders to evade federal or state lending laws and interest rate limits, and. CHN supports rules and other efforts to ensure access to safe, fair, affordable and sustainable mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, small dollar loans and other forms of credit. CHN supports efforts to ensure access to financial services for immigrants, including borrowers with limited English proficiency, and to provide opportunities for consumers to receive and provide information in consumers preferred language. CHN supports access to safe and affordable bank accounts, prepaid cards, mobile payments, electronic payments, remittance services and other transaction products and services, including through public institutions like the Postal Service. CHN supports reforms to stop abusive overdraft fee practices and to protect consumers from overdraft and other excessive or inappropriate fees. CHN supports transparency, free access to account information, and competition and fairness in banking and transaction services. CHN supports effective measures to resolve disputes, errors or unauthorized charges and to control who accesses consumers accounts. CHN supports greater consumer protections for people who have been defrauded or hacked, efforts to prevent and remedy fraud, measures to ensure that both newer and longstanding payment methods are safe, and effective remedies for consumers who have been harmed. CHN supports measures to protect consumers with respect to crypto-assets, to require that all forms of payment comply with consumer protections, and to prevent fraud and theft involving crypto-assets. CHN supports measures to ensure that data and reports kept about consumers are fair, accurate and up to date; to ensure consumers easily correct errors, and to promote fair and just treatment by data holders such as credit reporting agencies. es. CHN supports measures to eliminate the impact of racial disparities, medical debts and rental debts in credit reports, and to limit their use in tenant screening, employment, and insurance. CHN supports efforts to ensure the use of artificial intelligence, big data, algorithms, machine learning and other technology do not result in disparate impacts that harm communities of color or other protected classes. CHN supports ensuring that trans and nonbinary people who change their legal names are able to quickly and easily update their names on all of their financial and government records, including credit reports CHN supports measures to ensure that financial data is kept private, that consumers have greater control over their data, that when they give permission to access their data it is not used for other secondary purposes, and data is used only for appropriate purposes that do not disproportionately harm vulnerable or communities. CHN supports efforts to ensure that working families can get, keep, insure, and use a reliable car at fair, affordable and unbiased terms, with transparency and consistency in car sales and finance. CHN supports increased financial education and policies that encourage savings as helpful steps in promoting long-term economic security. CHN supports fair treatment of consumers who owe debts and the opportunity for second chances and a fresh start. CHN supports programs that work with consumers to save homes, to modify mortgages, auto loans and other types of loans, reduce or cancel student loans, and to access affordable repayment plans. CHN opposes unfair, deceptive or abusive debt collection practices. CHN supports limits on garnishments, offsets and debt collection with reasonable statutes of limitations to ensure that consumers have sufficient funds to pay for necessities. CHN supports fair bankruptcy laws, access to bankruptcy to achieve a fresh start, and the ability of bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages and discharge student loans. CHN opposes deceptive, abusive or fraudulent debt settlement, credit repair, loan modification or foreclosure rescue practices that exploit vulnerable consumers and leave them in a worse position. The Coalition on Human Needs opposes measures to make it more difficult for agencies to adopt and enforce consumer protection laws and rules to protect consumers. CHN supports the role of states in protecting consumers and addressing emerging problems and opposes preemption of state consumer protections, including through legislation, banking or other regulations or federal charters.
TargetedSENATE · HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
