Americans for Financial Reform sent a letter to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to comment on a proposal that would reduce the minimum leverage ratio requirements for the largest U.S. banks. Click here to access
AFR commented on a Federal Reserve proposal that would integrate the capital requirements in its different capital regimes to institute new stress buffer requirements.
“AFR strongly supports measures to both limit and control risks of physical commodity involvement at financial holding companies. …Specifically, we support the new consolidated limits on the total size of commodity holdings, the capital increase to 300 percent risk weights applied to commodities held under 4(k), and more…”
“The push for a Wall Street transaction tax continues to gain traction in Washington. In a fresh show of support , a majority of the Democratic members of the House of Representatives voted today for the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s “People’s Budget,” which includes a transaction tax. The 96 votes cast in favor of the CPC budget are 8 more votes than a similar proposal received last year.”
“’This is a really important rule,’” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. ‘Margin is the first line of defense in the derivatives market.’ The regulators made the changes to bring American margin rules in line with new international ones approved in 2013, and in response to public comments.
“’While it has taken us some time to get to this point, today’s action does represent significant progress,’ Thomas J. Curry, the comptroller of the currency, said in a statement.”
Half of the big Wall Street banks are using their foreign ownership to escape key provisions of Dodd-Frank. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. “Whether the foreign banking rule gets done is a big test,” Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, told the New York Times, adding: “Considering the number of problems with American banks that have occurred in London subsidiaries, I would appreciate seeing the Europeans raise the bar for foreign operations of American banks. That would be a win for the American taxpayer.’”
The Federal Reserve has heard plenty from U.S. banks about what’s wrong with various proposed pieces of Dodd-Frank rulemaking. Now, according to Kate Davidson of Politico Pro (April 15), the Fed is “getting an earful from foreign banks and their regulators, too.”
In a 181-page letter to federal regulators, the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association take aim at a set of proposed rules intended to ensure compliance with new international capital standards. Regulators should have “conducted an