“The banks have had plenty of warning, and they’ve had a good market to sell their holdings, said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform. They ‘want to hit the snooze button again over and over with the Fed,’ Stanley said… ‘The regulators have to be prepared to say, Time’s up.’ ”
“The group, Take On Wall Street, plans to combine the efforts of some of the Democratic Party’s biggest traditional backers, from the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO to the Communications Workers of America. The group says it will aim to turn the public’s lingering anger at the financial sector into policy initiatives that could change the way that Wall Street works.”
“These regulatory assessments add yet more weight to the case for aggressive action to realize the promise made in the Dodd-Frank Act that ‘too big to fail’ will be ended. The findings open the door to such action by authorizing regulators to place additional controls on the five banks whose plans were officially found to be ‘not credible’ if these banks do not meet the October 1st deadline for remediating the issues identified in the resolution plans. The regulators’ action also starts the two year clock in Dodd-Frank on the potential breakup or restructuring of these banks.”
“[Banks] are turning to the 79th page of a 2013 document titled “Regulatory Capital Rules” and looking at footnote 151. That reference effectively lets banks hold less capital against shorter-term derivatives… ‘This is classic regulatory arbitrage,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for public-interest group Americans for Financial Reform.”
“The [Metlife] decision is ‘really potentially damaging to the framework Dodd Frank set up to oversee nonfinancial institutions,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform. If the ruling is upheld, ‘FSOC would have a very hard time designating anybody in the future, even when they truly do pose risk to the financial system…'”
“Tuesday’s letter to the Fed and FDIC from Americans for Financial Reform… is the latest evidence that the agencies could face some backlash if their verdict is favorable to the industry. The coalition includes large unions and public interest groups with powerful pull in Washington… The coalition asks that regulators, if they decline to find banks’ plans not credible, provide the public with a detailed explanation of improvements banks have made in the living wills since the firms failed to pass regulatory muster in 2014.”
“AFR sent a letter to banking regulators today concerning their review of bank resolution plans. The Dodd-Frank Act requires regulators to review these plans to ensure that major banks are no longer ‘too big to fail’ – that they can go through a conventional (Chapter 11) private bankruptcy in an orderly manner, without creating substantial economic disruption. “
“Banking specialists who favor more stringent Wall Street rules expressed some concerns… ‘A derivatives exposure that looks small in normal times can become enormous in times of financial stress,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. “This rule may not contain adequate protections against that kind of risk.’”
“I think you need an all-of-the-above approach: you use the law that bears Barney Frank’s name, which requires the breakup of any bank that is too big to fail without harming the economy; you pass new legislation, the 21st Century Glass Steagall Act, which is a bipartisan piece of legislation – Senator Warren’s on it, and Senator McCain is on it. And then you need to involve the public and the grass roots in order to build this new voice that’s going to hold these people accountable.” — AFR’s Alexis Goldstein
AFR is calling on financial regulators to provide the public with more transparency on the implementation of the Volcker Rule, the historic prohibition on bank proprietary trading incorporated into the Dodd-Frank Act.