The Obama government of today seems to be more concerned with the welfare of the consumer. One reform after the other is being made to bring corrupt and stringent practices of business authorities under control. The Credit Card Act of 2009 was one such reform which aims to put an end to the unfair practices adopted by credit card holders. But the credit card world is not the only sphere of consumer victimization. Other areas such as mortgaging, financial aiding, and others are also replete with instances where consumers have been treated very badly by the concerned authorities. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency aims to address and rectify all these issues.
One of the first improvements that you can see coming with the Consumer Financial Protection Act is that the statements of your transactions are more clear and written in manner in which you can easily understand. Also the statements will be honest and completely revealing in nature. So after you sign a transaction you need not fear of encountering new charges or terms and conditions which have not been mentioned in your deal document.
The CFPA appears to be truly effective. It is not like other consumer protection Acts which consumers can hardly connect to. Maybe till now you had an issue, but you could really not tap legal help for that because though harassing, the issue did not qualify for legal action. But CFPA has taken care of all situations that you might come across. It vows to ensure maximum fair treatment to the consumer. The CFPA scanner is focused especially on those financial companies that take advantage of their good rapport with the regulation authorities and mete our unfairness to the consumers.
As far as the government is concerned, the move to protect consumers is a very noble initiative but industry lobbyists are not very happy about it. According to media reports, they are not very appreciative of the establishment of an independent agency for the regulation of predatory and abusive lending practices by credit card companies and other financially aiding companies. They feel that the new rules are restrictive because of which credit card companies cannot come up with any innovative schemes in future. This will pose a hindrance in their selling any attractive products to their customers. The customers will be cautious and limit their choices only to a few products. All this will ultimately lead to an increase in the rate of credit and restrict its availability.
The Chamber of Commerce seconds the CFPA by emphasizing that it’s not only big credit card companies or lending agencies but also any small business that seems to be adopting predatory ways will be brought under the control of the regulatory act.
I think the reformatory CFPA is fair enough and is required. Maybe under normal circumstances, this might seem to be an unasked for hassle for the financial industry but now recession has taught the lesson in a harsh way. It has made reforming the entire financial system a necessity. After all, why should anyone have problems with the clean up process? It’s just asking businesses to be fair to their customers.
