President Obama yesterday unveiled his 89-page blueprint for Financial Regulatory Reform. Here's a summary, supplied by the Wall Street Journal, of proposed consumer financial protections:

For regulations protecting consumers and investors, the proposal:

• Creates a new agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, with broad authority over consumer-oriented financial products, such as mortgages and credit cards. The new agency would work with state regulators.
• Gives the new agency power to write rules and levy fines based on a wide range of existing statutes.
• Proposes new authority for the Federal Trade Commission over the banking sector, in areas such as data security.
• Creates an outside advisory panel to keep an eye on emerging industry practices.
• Says the new agency should play “a leading role” in educating consumers about finance.
• Gives the new agency authority to ban or restrict mandatory arbitration clauses.
• Improves transparency of consumer products and services disclosures.
• Says the new regulator should have authority to define standards for simple “plain vanilla” products, such as mortgages, which would have to be offered “prominently” by companies.
• Proposes the government “do more” to promote these simple products.
• Beefs up the agency’s power to regulate unfair, deceptive or abusive practices.
• Imposes “duties of care” that will have to be followed by financial intermediaries, such as stock brokers and financial advisers.
• Regulates overdraft protection plans, treating them more like credit credit-card cash advances.
• Promotes access to credit in line with community investment objectives.
• Strengthens SEC’s framework for investor protection by expanding the agency’s powers to beef up disclosures to investors, establish a fiduciary duty for broker-dealers who offer advice and expand protection for whistleblowers, including a fund that would pay for certain information.
• Requires non-binding shareholder votes on executive compensation packages.
• Requires certain employers to offer an “automatic IRA plan” for employee retirement, with investment choices prescribed by regulation or statute.
• Urges exploration of ways to improve participation in 401(k) retirement plans

While it remains to be seen whether this agency will actually see the light of day, every one of its proposed activities is designed to benefit consumers and individual investors, for whom fine-print disclosure statements and current state and federal safety nets have been insufficient. For an example of the ways lenders, credit card companies and other peddlers of financial services and products take advantage of consumers, check our recent article, "Financial Traps are Flourishing."