“‘This latest bill will wind up making regulators weaker than they were before the crisis,’ Marcus Stanley [of] Americans for Financial Reform… told CNNMoney. ‘It’s definitely a shift toward empowering the White House to micromanage consumer protections and enforcement actions.'”
“’They are doing great under the current system,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform.
The country’s nearly 6,000 banks — from large players such as Bank of America to the small community and regional banks packed into the hotel conference room — pulled in more than $171 billion in profits last year — a new record, according to recently released Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Wall Street bonuses rose for the first time in three years in 2016 to an average of $138,210, and big banks such as Goldman Sachs have seen their stock prices surge since Trump’s election, even after a pullback this week.
Ballentine, the lobbyist, told bankers they should not be embarrassed by that success. ‘Profit is not a four-letter word. You’re supposed to be profitable,’ he said.”
“A financial disclosure report that Jay Clayton filed with the government reveals clients that pose potential conflicts of interest for the SEC job. They include financial industry powerhouses Goldman Sachs , Deutsche Bank, Barclays and UBS… ‘This is a sort of Who’s Who of Wall Street,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform… ‘I would think that this would force quite a lot of recusals…’”
“’Hard data on bank earnings and lending should lay to rest any notion that financial regulations are holding back the American economy, or getting in the way of American banks making money,’ Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement. ‘These claims are just an excuse to dismantle hard-won protections for consumers and financial stability.’
Since the financial crisis, the banking industry has largely thrived, according to the FDIC data. “
“‘How long can industry lobbyists get away with saying Dodd-Frank has harmed lending and harmed profits in the banking industry when the numbers go completely the other way?’ said Marcus Stanley, a policy director at Americans for Financial Reform.
The increase included a 5.1 percent rise in commercial and industrial loans, a 7.5 percent gain in commercial real estate loans and a 4.8 percent uptick in residential mortgages, the FDIC said in its quarterly banking profile.”
“‘Critics of altering Dodd-Frank believe the signs point to a regrettable return to a pre-recession era when large banks operated without significant regulatory oversight,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform…’We had experience with Wall Street self-regulation prior to the financial crisis, and it did not work out well,’ Stanley said. ‘When you let industry determine its own rules, it’s going to create more risks. The downside of those risks is going to be pushed to taxpayers and working families.'”
“Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform, a group that wants tougher regulation of Wall Street, said that the NEC and Treasury would provide the core economic policy advice to the new administration and would have a tremendous voice in future regulatory appointments. ‘Trump talked about the rigged system. [This] is a recipe for maintaining that rigged status quo,” he said.”
“[The] question is whether Dodd-Frank will be replaced or just torn down. If Republicans create a regulatory vacuum or simply allow the banks to write their own rules, [AFR’s Marcus Stanley] said, they will have gone too far. ‘It’s obvious that Dodd-Frank is going to come under severe attack both in Congress and the regulatory agencies,’ Stanley said… [T]he first question is going to be, What do you plan to do to actually address these Wall Street abuses? If the answer is, We’re not going to do anything … then that is something we are going to fight really hard on.”
“While Trump bashed Wall Street throughout the campaign, the financial services industry is trying to figure out whether his victory, coupled with a GOP-led Congress, could open a path forward to easing regulations… Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said he expected to play defense on some issues but hoped that the populist pitch made by Trump during the election ‘wasn’t just rhetoric that gets forgotten when you come to DC.'”
“U.K. banking rules now provide for unpaid bonus awards to be canceled or reduced, or bonuses to be returned or ‘clawed back’ if misconduct is later uncovered. Adjustments in unpaid bonuses within major U.K. banks tripled to about £300 million in 2014, from £100 million in 2010… ‘On a lot of these cultural issues, it seems like the U.K. is tougher than the U.S.,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, an independent advocacy group for effective financial regulation.”