Current and former regulators, industry observers and academics said in interviews that such conflicts have rarely arisen in the past; few expected major problems in the future even if consumer issues are handled by a separate agency.
"In 14 years, 10 at the OCC, I cannot recall a meeting I sat in where we worried about consumer protection and looked at safety and soundness and said the two are in conflict so how do we solve this," said Kevin Jacques, the Boynton D. Murch chairman in finance at Baldwin-Wallace College and a former Treasury official. "I don't buy the reasoning at all. I would love to see one regulator provide a concrete example where safety and soundness and consumer protection are in conflict and it caused some difficulty. I can't think of one."
Brad Sabel, a partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP and a former New York Federal Reserve Bank official, agreed.
"In my experience I do not recall seeing a case where a consumer protection regulation was found to pose a threat to safe and sound operations of the banks," he said.
Several other former regulators echoed this line, and even Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, who has raised concerns with the creation of a consumer agency, acknowledged that such a conflict would be rare.
"In a lot of cases, we will not have this dispute," he said in a recent speech to the American Bankers Association.
The argument has been made by bankers almost since the regulatory reform debate began, with many saying it would be a mistake to give control of consumer issues to anyone but banking regulators.
The argument has also been made by leading Republicans who fear the consumer agency would write rules that could make banks riskier and ignore concerns raised by the agencies. Opponents of the consumer agency argue that it would have sweeping, unchecked powers that could result in more lending to uncreditworthy borrowers.
"One area that stands out is loan underwriting," Dugan said in an e-mail. "For example, a consumer agency might think that down payments on house purchases should be limited to 5% to promote homeownership, while a safety and soundness regulator might believe a higher minimum could be needed to ensure lenders don't make loans that won't be repaid. Given the significant role that loose underwriting played in the financial crisis, I think it makes sense to provide an exemption from the consumer agency's jurisdiction for credit standards."
Ray Natter, a partner in Barnett Sivon & Natter PC and a former official of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said a consumer agency would "disregard the impact" new rules could have on the financial system.
"For example, from a consumer protection standpoint, you would want to give borrowers every opportunity to cure a default, and might mandate repeated 'second chances' to bring a loan up to date before repossessing the car or canceling a credit card," he said. "That's great for the consumer, but the bank is losing money, and these costs will be passed on to the entire economy through higher interest rates and fees."
But the argument relies on the idea that the new agency would proactively seek to extend consumer credit, for example, or otherwise push for policy goals like broader homeownership.
