Committee for Better Banks Statement on Nomination of Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary

Committee for Better Banks

For Immediate Release: November 30, 2020

Contact: [email protected]

Committee for Better Banks Statement on Nomination of Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary

Washington, D.C. — In response to President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Janet Yellen as the next Secretary of the Treasury, Nick Weiner, organizing co-director of the Committee for Better Banks released the following statement:

“The nomination of Janet Yellen to be the next Treasury Secretary holds great promise for working families and a stronger, more accountable financial system.

“As Chair of the Federal Reserve, Yellen doggedly pursued policies to strengthen our banking system and ensure it works fairly for all customers. When frontline bank workers with the Committee for Better Banks helped to expose Wells Fargo’s rampant wrongdoing, Yellen brought down the hammer on the bank and imposed an unprecedented asset-cap. She further strengthened the economic security of working people to prevent another financial crash in her support for regulations like the Dodd-Frank and the Community Reinvestment Acts.

“Amidst an historically unequal economic recession and recovery, Yellen’s staunch commitment to fairness in our financial system is urgently needed. During this pandemic, our scorecard reports of the largest U.S. banks have underscored the pressing need for stronger oversight and for bank workers to have a seat at the table to raise their concerns with industry leaders. Successfully meeting the banking needs of American consumers and businesses depends on empowering the roughly one million bank workers—tellers, customer service representatives, loan processors, underwriters and many others—to push back against predatory sales quotas, cross selling and other practices that can put customers at risk because they understand the full scale of protections workers, customers and the financial system require to weather the economic impacts of COVID-19. 
 

“The Committee for Better Banks looks forward to working with Yellen and the new administration to create stronger, more sustainable and equitable financial institutions, which are influenced by the working people who are the frontlines of this economic recovery.”