Consumer advocates Baradaran and Barr are top contenders for bank cop



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“We need to repair the damage caused by the last four years of policy: rebuilding a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and strengthening the resilience of the financial system with tighter capital and liquidity regulations, for example example, ”he said in June 2020.

Anyone chosen as the Comptroller of the Currency would wonder how to reduce the number of people excluded from the financial system – a circumstance that impairs their ability to obtain government assistance or take out loans, especially if they have no credit. . scores.

The new regulator would also oversee the national banking system at a time of technological upheaval, with traditional lenders facing both competition and business opportunities from online lenders and cutting edge financial applications – an innovation that could lead to benefit. more efficient and fair financial services, but also more consumer abuse.

Enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 law designed to tackle discriminatory bank lending practices, should be a priority for regulators in the Biden administration. A Trump-appointed controller, Joseph Otting, revised the historic anti-redlining law without the support of the two other federal bank regulators: the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. His move was also opposed by Democrats and community groups and faced skepticism from banks.

The Fed has already started working on an alternative approach.

Democrats have also pushed for a person named by Biden to reverse other Trump-era OCC actions, including rules they say make it easier for payday lenders to partner with banks to circumvent state interest rate caps.

Baradaran teaches at the University of California at Irvine Law School, where she is Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion. She has written a book titled “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap,” which focuses on the barriers faced by black-owned financial institutions and the dynamics behind the barriers to wealth creation. faced black Americans.

Barr is dean of public policy at the University of Michigan and a non-resident senior researcher at the Center for American Progress. He worked as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions in 2009 and 2010 and previously served in the Obama White House. He also worked in the Treasury under President Bill Clinton.

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