USPIRG LAUDS CFPB SAFE STUDENT BANKING INITIATIVE

Media Contacts
Chris Lindstrom

U.S. PIRG

WASHINGTON, DC —   Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched an initiative to protect students from the high banking fees and aggressive marketing surrounding campus bank accounts.  The educational effort seeks to provide campus administrators with a scorecard to reference when considering a deal with a bank or financial institution to administer student bank accounts, or financial aid refunds.

“College students need protections from over-the-top marketing tactics, revenue-sharing agreements with colleges, and hard-to-avoid fees layered in to campus bank accounts,”   Christine Lindstrom, USPIRG Higher Education Program Director said. 

“A student’s college may ink a multi-million dollar banking deals that delivers for the institution’s bottom line, but at the same time the deal ensnares students in bank accounts that drive up their costs.

“That’s why college administrators, who don’t regularly confront consumer problems in their jobs, need tools like the scorecard.”   

Students need to know that they college ensure entered into a campus banking agreement that works for them, not just for the college and the bank behind the agreement.

 

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