Vickers Plan Beats Volcker Rule: Downey

The former chairman of the Securities Industry Association jumps into the Glass-Steagall debate. But instead of championing the revival of Depression-era law that separated commercial and investment banking, he'd like to revive the SIA’s proposed legislation from the 1990s.

"Congress should take another look at the SIA plan or the Vickers plan, both of which are simpler and cleaner than Dodd-Frank's prohibition of federally insured banks from engaging in proprietary trading," writes Robert Downey.

The SIA plan would permit "separately capitalized investment banking subsidiaries of bank holding companies to compete with traditional investment banks—but with strong firewalls to prevent access to federal deposit insurance."

And he says that idea is pretty much the same as the UK’s Vicker Plan, except the Brits talk about "ring fencing" instead of "firewalls."

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