WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 – Over 100 million Americans are “unbanked” or “underbanked,” meaning they can and do fall prey to exploitative and predatory check cashing-firms, cash cards, pay day-lenders and other “shadow” bankers.
“The current system has failed to require federally insured and subsidized banks to serve all taxpayers,” Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, will tell participants at a Friday meeting on the issue in Washington.
Mierzwinski is one of several experts who will speak at “Shining a Light on ‘Shadow’ Banking,” a half-day meeting hosted by the New American Foundation.
After a keynote by Peggy Twohig, the Director for Consumer Protection at the U.S. Treasury Department, a panel of experts will discuss the un- and underbanked – Who are they? Why do they use alternative, sometimes called “shadow,” products? Twohig will also discuss the Obama Administration's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).
Mierzwinski and U.S. PIRG are convinced lenders need to be subject to more government regulation, and that the country’s banks and financial firms also should serve all Americans.
“The new CFPA will help guarantee that the unbanked and the underbanked can get affordable and non-predatory services that should be a right of all taxpayers,” Mierzwinski will say.
U.S. PIRG, which has worked on consumer issues and stood up to powerful interests for over 25 years, is a leading member of the new Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of hundreds of national, regional and state groups have joined together in order to make sure the financial sector is “working for all Americans.”
Founded in 1999, the New American Foundation is “a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States,” according to its website.
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U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization.
For more on U.S. PIRG's "Reining in Wall Street” campaign, click here.
