Obama vows to accelerate Wall Street reforms

Washington: US President Barack Obama has vowed to continuously promote Wall Street reforms to prevent Americans from suffering another financial crisis.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) set up under Wall Street reforms has been protecting Americans from mistakes made by firms who determine credit scores, Obama said Saturday.

He also pointed out that CFPB and other regulators have recently ordered three big companies to return over $400 million to people who were misled into making purchases they didn't want, Xinhua reported.

To stem the devastating financial crisis that began four years ago from spreading from Wall Street to Main Street, the US passed new reforms and the nation had recovered much from the crisis, the president in his weekly address.

US businesses had added more than five million new jobs and the unemployment rate had fallen to the lowest level since he took office, Obama said.

What the CFPB did is what Wall Street reform is all about, looking out for working families and ensuring everyone is playing by the same rules, he said.

However, he asserted, Republicans in Congress had always been trying to roll back these reforms.

"Backed by an army of financial industry lobbyists, they've been waging an all-out battle to delay, defund and dismantle these new rules," he said.

Obama, sounding like a consumer advocate, stressed that he would refuse to let that happen and continue to move reforms forward.

With just 10 days left to the presidential election, Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney are both in full speed to campaign.

IANS