“Though small compared to Wall Street and the right, groups like Americans for Financial Reform and Better Markets show up extensively in the comments on the Volcker Rule. In the final rule, there are hundreds of references to the detailed comment letter the Occupy the SEC group sent…” The work of these outside groups “is a major piece of what makes solid final rules happen.”
“The strength of the rule is the scope of the compliance regime,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform. “The regulators correctly realized that most proprietary trading is hidden within supposedly innocent activities like hedging or market making.”
“After years of consideration, the five agencies charged with implementing the Volcker Rule have reached agreement. This is an important step forward in financial reform. The final rule reflects hard work by champions of the rule within the regulatory agencies, the Administration, Congress, and the public-interest community… [But] today’s approval is only one step toward realizing the promise of the Volcker Rule.”
Commercial banks – the traditional focus of financial regulation – no longer stand at the center of the financial system. Broker-dealers, money market funds, asset managers, and insurance companies have become key actors, with the potential to shake the stability of the whole economy. Join prominent experts, reform advocates, and regulators for a discussion of the “shadow banking” system of market-mediated credit and the steps needed to integrate it into a safer and more sustainable financial system.
“We should not accept a financial system that allows the biggest banks to emerge from a crisis in record-setting shape while working Americans continue to struggle.” – Senator Elizabeth Warren speaking at the launch event for a new AFR/Roosevelt Institute report on the state of financial reform.
AFR wrote to the banking regulators to urge them to strengthen the new supplementary leverage ratio proposed for large U.S. banks.
“The giant financial institutions at the center of the economy are larger than ever, and still combine economically critical payment functions with complex and murky trading and brokerage activities.”
A Policy Forum on the Small-Business Stake in Big-Bank Reform Five years after the 2008 crisis, the financial world remains dominated by a half dozen megabanks which continue to engage in speculative activities for their own enrichment, even as they enjoy the benefits of
“This legislation restores the division between commercial banking and financial market activities – a change that will make our financial system more secure and better able to support the real economy.”
AFR sent a letter to regulators emphasizing the lessons from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) report on the London Whale.