U.S. consumers filed nearly 300,000 complaints last year about their dealings with banks, credit card issuers and other financial services companies. Most of those complaints were compiled and made available for anyone to see as part of a database administered by the federal government.
But Republicans working to overhaul the financial regulation law known as Dodd-Frank want to bar publication of information from that database, which industry groups have long criticized as potentially misleading and incomplete.
“Is the purpose of the database just to name and shame companies? Or should they have a disclaimer on there that says it’s a fact-free zone, or this is fake news? That’s really what I see happening here,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., said at a congressional hearing this month.
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“Once the damage is done to a company, it’s hard to get your reputation back,” responded Bill Himpler, executive vice president of the American Financial Services Association, a trade group representing banks and other lenders. “Something needs to be done.”
The exchange reflects what House Republicans are thinking as they try to make changes to Dodd-Frank, the law passed in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crises. Initially, GOP lawmakers wanted to require that consumer complaints be verified as accurate before they were published. Now, members of Congress want to prohibit publishing the complaints entirely.
Source: Fortune
The post Public Window on Financial Complaints Could be Closing Soon appeared first on Compliancex.
April 24, 2017 at 06:55PM
from The Compliance Exchange
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