AFR organized a briefing for Senate Banking staff on the regulation of large regional banks and the potential risks to the financial system that could emerge if regulatory authority over these banks is significantly diminished. AFR Policy Director Marcus Stanley and Professor Heidi Schooner of the Catholic University School of Law presented at the briefing.
PoliticoPro reports that “financial reform advocates are ramping up lobbying against a push by regional banks to ease rules from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.” While the banks argue that systemic-risk rules should be limited to a small group of the biggest and most complex banks, “Americans for Financial Reform says the failure of a large regional bank could be a big risk during a crisis,” writes Politico’s Zachary Warmbrodt.
In recent months there have been calls to roll back regulation of large regional banks – institutions that hold over $50 billion in assets but are not among the eight U.S. mega-banks with a global footprint. In response to unfounded claims about the treatment of large regional banks under the Dodd-Frank Act, AFR has sent a briefing paper to congressional staff as well as the press.
“Americans for Financial Reform welcomes the President’s proposed tax on the liabilities of large banks. Since the tax would fall specifically on debt liabilities, it would create incentives against excessive leverage in the financial sector, while raising revenue as well… We also see the President’s bank tax proposal as contributing to a broad and emerging consensus on the appropriateness of taxing the financial sector commensurately with its profits.”
“Since December, Congress has twice passed measures to weaken regulations in the Dodd-Frank financial law that are intended to reduce the risk of another financial meltdown. In the last election cycle, Wall Street banks and financial interests spent over $1.2 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions, according to Americans for Financial Reform. Their spending strategy appears to be working. Just this week, the House passed further legislation that would delay by two years some key provisions of Dodd-Frank. “[Banks] want to be able to do things their way, and that’s very dangerous.” MIT economist Simon Johnson tells Bill.
Americans for Financial Reform… called the Fed action disappointing and said it “raises serious questions about regulators’ intentions to properly enforce the Volcker Rule.” “Since proprietary trading can occur through the mechanism of external funds, the delay in divestment requirements for covered funds will greatly weaken the enforcement of other crucial parts of the Volcker Rule as well,” the organization said.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2014 Contact: Marcus Stanley marcus@ourfinancialsecurity.org 202-466-3672 AFR STATEMENT ON FEDERAL RESERVE DELAY OF VOLCKER RULE IMPLEMENTATION Today, the Federal Reserve announced that it would delay the effective implementation of a crucial part of the Volcker Rule for
“Mandatory margin requires participants in the swaps market to take full account of the risks of their derivatives transactions and provide some level of advance provisioning for such risks. The availability of properly segregated margin is clearly of enormous value in case of the default of a swaps counterparty.”
“A bipartisan group of 15 legislators… has released a letter calling for stronger limitations on the use of Federal Reserve emergency lending powers. The Dodd-Frank Act mandated new limits on such emergency lending. Today’s letter strongly criticizes the Federal Reserve’s proposal to implement these new limits, saying that the proposal places ‘no meaningful restrictions’ on lending powers and leaves the door open to a future ‘backdoor bailout’ of Wall Street. AFR welcomes this letter and applauds the efforts of legislators to address this issue.”
“At the Capitol this afternoon [July 9], Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) received petitions in which nearly 600,000 Americans call for action on the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. This bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Warren along with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Angus King (I-Maine), would address the problem of Wall Street banks that have become too complicated, too conflicted and too powerful, as well as simply too big.”