McClatchy news bureau reported, “The Obama administration is proposing the broadest changes in financial regulation since the Great Depression, calling for the elimination of some bank regulators and giving the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve vast new authority.” Among the changes, the administration “will propose creating a special commission that would regulate consumer credit, watching for misleading advertising and predatory lending by credit card companies, payday lenders and mortgage brokers who help arrange financing for home purchases but have had no duty to prospective homeowners. This would involve shifting powers now with the Fed and other regulators, although the Securities and Exchange Commission wouldn’t lose its investor-protection powers.”
The Wall Street Journal reports, “The administration’s plan to create a new consumer-protection agency could attract the most attention because it touches virtually all consumers. The administration wants financial firms to offer more ‘plain vanilla’ products, administration officials said. Most of the exact powers of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency will be left up to Congress and the agency itself.”
From the American Association for Justice news release.