"The key lesson here is 'never again.' We can never again get our company or our industry in this position."
Brian Moynihan, Bank of America CEO, Jan. 4
"There is a real sense that this is a moment in time where with these abuses, to not act would be a huge mistake. With the kind of mistakes that were made, to somehow say the status quo is acceptable just doesn't cut it."
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Jan. 4
"I came to the conclusion that, in the long sweep of American history, there are moments for each elected public servant to step aside and let someone else step up. This is my moment to step aside."
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, Jan. 6
"Let me see if I got this straight: The only people who have fully recovered from the financial meltdown are the ones who caused the financial meltdown."
Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show," Jan. 19
"It was hard to show why my free checking was better than your free checking. At the end of the day, price becomes an issue in the absence of value. If you provide the value, people will pay the price."
Terry Zink, an executive vice president at Fifth Third, Jan. 21
"My resolve to reform the system is only strengthened when I see a return to old practices at some of the very firms fighting reform."
President Obama, Jan. 22
"We've been very fortunate that our balance sheet has been strong, so we've been very offensive in the market. We've had very good success building relationships with really good larger companies, where we were just never in consideration before."
Kelly King, BB&T's chairman and CEO, Jan. 22
"I have grave concerns that the FDIC has taken its mission to protect depositors and used it to promote a world in which there are fewer banks. FDIC actions … have further concentrated assets in already large depository institutions."
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Jan. 22
"We cannot let them win this fight. If the bill that ends up on my desk does not meet the test of real reform, I will send it back."
President Obama, Jan. 27
"Some people worry about competition, I say we are living in America, not Russia. I love competition. The best opportunities come when you are dealing with competition. We think there is room for a few of us to be successful and we plan on being one of them."
Jay Sidhu, chairman and CEO of New Century, Feb. 26
"It's hard for me to understand why, in the face of a crisis that was so complex and covered so many markets and institutions, you would want to take out of the regulatory system the one institution that has the full breadth and range of those skills to address those issues."
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, Feb. 26
"I was incredulous. After all the Fed bashing we've heard? The Fed's such a weak engine, so let's give them consumer protection? It's almost a bad joke. I was very disappointed."
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, March 3
"We were at the 5-yard line, and suddenly the lights went out."
Sen. Corker, after Dodd abruptly broke off negotiations with him over regulatory reform, March 12
"Our actions today will not be the last against a Tarp applicant. You will be tracked down, you will be caught and you will be brought to justice."
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, on fraud perpetrators, March 16
"The legislation I present today contains bipartisan ideas and is the result of a bipartisan effort. It does not as of yet enjoy bipartisan support."
Sen. Dodd, on introduction of his regulatory reform bill, March 16
"We barely survived."
Daniel Kim, Saehan Bank CEO, after raising capital, March 19
"When you ask what makes an effective supervisory system, there is not much material to look at."
Julie Dickson, Canada's superintendent of financial institutions, March 24
"A cascading effect will result as state banking departments lose their largest fee-providing banks and are forced to make up the difference by raising fees on the smaller banks, thus incentivizing even more charter-flipping."
Richard Neiman, New York State superintendent of banks, warning that removing the Fed from bank supervision would destroy the dual banking system, April 1
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact on our country. I'm sorry for the millions of people, average Americans, who have lost their homes. And I'm sorry that our management team starting with me, like so many others, could not see the unprecedented market collapse that laid before us."
Charles Prince, former CEO of Citigroup, April 9
"It just seems to me at the end of the day the two of you in charge of this organization did not have a grip on what was happening. I don't know that you can have it two ways. You were either pulling the levers or were asleep at the switch."
Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, to two former top executives at Citigroup, April 9
"We have recently seen some badly misinformed criticisms of the legislative reforms that appear to have no other purpose than to obfuscate the issues and delay enactment."
Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., April 13
"Just real quickly, let's all not call it a bank fee and call it what it is — which is a punitive bank tax."
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO, giving his thoughts on the 'financial crisis responsibility fee' proposed during the congressional reform debate, April 14
"About the only time OTS showed backbone was against another agency's moving, in your view, into your turf. … I don't see your blood pressure getting up against a bank which is engaging in the kind of dangerous practices that that bank engaged in."
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., to John Reich, former director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, on the failure of Wamu, April 19
"As director of the agency, I never felt beholden to 'preserve' Wamu or any other chartered entity under our supervision for the purpose of preserving OTS' revenue stream or its standing as a separate regulatory agency."
John Reich, former OTS director, in response to Sen. Levin, April 19
"We've seen misleading arguments and attacks designed not to improve the bill but to weaken or kill it. And we've seen a bipartisan process buckle under the weight of these withering forces, even as we have produced a proposal that is by all accounts a common-sense, reasonable, nonideological approach to target the root problems that led to the turmoil in our financial sector."
President Obama, April 22
"We are asking all USAA members and employees to urge their U.S. senators to amend a portion of the bill, known as the Volcker Rule, to eliminate its effect on a company like USAA."
Josue Robles Jr., head of USAA Federal Savings Bank, in a rare pitch to customers to lobby on regulatory reform, April 26
"You didn't tell them you thought it was a 'shitty deal'? You knew it was a 'shitty deal.' … Should Goldman Sachs be trying to sell a 'shitty deal'?"
Sen. Levin, April 28
"Instead of working on something — trying to improve my customer experience or enhance my delivery channel — I'm focused on CARD Act, I'm focused on Reg E, I'm focused on all the regulatory changes. It's a huge wild card, and it makes it a pain to do technology planning both for the client and the vendor."
Quintin Sykes, managing director with Cornerstone Advisors, April 30
"If they need shampoo and toilet paper, there's an aisle for them. When they need money services, we're going to have that location in the store available to solve those problems for that consumer as well."
Susan Ehrlich, head of the financial services unit at Sears Holdings, May 6
"Lest you think that it will provide more clarity, it will not. It will simply create the next level of uncertainty. So we'll deal with it, we'll handle it — we can handle anything — but we're not looking forward to it."
Richard K. Davis, the chairman and chief executive of U.S. Bancorp, on regulatory reform legislation, May 12
"I worked for years at money centers who try to pretend to be local and community, and they really aren't."
Ellen Alemany, Citizens Financial Group's chairman and CEO, discussing why some regional banks outranked bigger banks in a Reputation Institute consumer survey, May 17
"The real risk is somebody handing you the keys back, because at the end of the day we don't want the assets."
Scott Kingsley, CEO of Community Bank System, Dewitt, N.Y., May 21
"In Florida, the pricing for a bank, even a failed bank, has gone up enormously. It is a very different market from what we encountered a year ago."
Wilbur Ross, the private-equity financier, on why he was heading to Michigan in search of lower-priced banks, June 2
"I used to say that all the notes were in the box next to the Ark of the Covenant."
James Kowalski Jr., a Jacksonville, Fla., attorney, who represents borrowers, describing lenders' inability to document that they own the mortgages they try to foreclose on, June 3
"The nonbank sector was about half of the finance industry pie when you added it all up. Much of that is gone — that is a lot of pie for the rest of us."
Stephen Steinour, Huntington's CEO, June 4
"My great fear is that we've all died and this is our purgatory. We are going to spend the rest of our lives here in conference."
Sen. Dodd, June 21
"We've let our excitement get the best of us and have released parts of Square before they were fully baked."
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Square, June 22
"You're playing for the Yankees, and it doesn't matter if it's shortstop or third base."
Michael Cavanagh of JPMorgan Chase, on moving from CFO to head of treasury and securities services, June 25
"I am writing you to express my strong opposition to the $19 billion bank tax that was included in the financial reform bill during the conference committee. This tax was not in the Senate version of the bill, which I supported. If the final version of this bill contains these higher taxes, I will not support it."
Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., a swing vote needed to approve final reg reform legislation, on an objection to a provision added at the 11th hour to the bill, June 29
"The reserve ratio needs to be increased. A further increase to 1.35% is consistent with our view that the fund should be built up in good economic times and be allowed to fall in poor economic times."
Sheila Bair, chairman of the FDIC, June 30
"There's a big omission here in the reform bill. There is nothing in there, not one word, about the GSEs — Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac]. And if you would ask any American they would say housing was, if not the epicenter of what happened, very close to it. And who are two biggest players there? Fannie and Freddie."
John Stumpf, chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo, July 21
"I know it's drastic but drastic times call for drastic measures and I just can't wait."
Alex Sanchez, president of the Florida Bankers Association, who asked regulators to suspend higher capital requirements for his members for 12 months, citing the Gulf oil spill's effects, July 15
"These are just pressure-cooker jobs. At some point, you need to move on. … What I would like to do is to stay active and concentrate on individual issues rather than having to deal with a new issue every five minutes, which is the nature of the current job."
Ed Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association, announcing he would leave his post at the end of the year, July 8
"Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes. There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period."
President Obama, July 21
"They are almost being set up for failure. Their job is to get ahead of any systemic risk to occur. So if anything does get by them, they are set up to be blamed."
Wayne Abernathy, executive director of financial institutions policy and regulatory affairs for the ABA, on the formation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, July 30
"The toughest for me is always the people. We expanded too much. … When you try to go to bed at night, that's what weighs on you. It's the human cost of all these things that [is] painful."
Richard Carrion, chairman and CEO of Popular, reflecting on his bank's layoffs during the financial crisis, July 28
"I don't see us growing domestic business in the United States, because frankly we haven't got any right to win."
Michael Geoghegan, CEO of HSBC Holdings, on the aftermath of the company's misadventures in U.S. consumer finance, Aug. 3
"This is one time when I'm probably grateful for not having had the highest market share of debit in the United States."
Ajay Banga, MasterCard's president and chief executive, regarding the potential effect of debit interchange regulation, Aug. 4
"You can't be an Internet payment company without being a mobile payment company."
Laura Chambers, the senior director of PayPal Mobile, Aug. 18
"We are arguing we should create an FDIC-like entity to explicitly price this form of guarantee. It will capture many of the benefits that have been associated with the GSEs, they will allow the government to accumulate an insurance fund, or reserves, to pay for supporting the fund up front. That's really the essence of why people want the government in the mortgage market. It defines well what the government's role will be."
Wayne Passmore, associate director in the Fed's division of research and statistics, on a proposal he co-authored to create a government backstop for the ABS markets to replace the GSEs, Aug. 23
"Giddy up, giddy up, giddy up, giddy up. Sheriff Warren's what we need, yo. Let me plead, yo. She's not about the money and the green, no. She's about working class families and bringing them out of financial crisis and tragedies."
Ryan Anthony Lumas, Los Angeles-area comic, rapping in a viral video and referring to Elizabeth Warren, Aug. 23
"It's the mortgage industry's Vietnam."
Brian Chappelle, a partner in Potomac Partners, on efforts to merge conflicting mortgage disclosure requirements, Aug. 25
"The likelihood of a terrorist organization purchasing our brands' plus-size-apparel gift cards, which can only be used to purchase women's clothing and accessories, for laundering funds is remote if [not] nonexistent."
Kirk Simme, a senior vice president of Charming Shoppes, in a letter to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Aug 30
"It's got pizzazz and sex appeal, but the user experience isn't all that hot."
David Kvederis, president and chief executive of BankServ, discussing early mobile remote deposit applications, Sept. 1
"The agreements reached today are a fundamental strengthening of global capital standards. Their contribution to long-term financial stability and growth will be substantial."
Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank and chairman of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, on proposed Basel III capital reforms, Sept. 13
"Each month we feel more traction with originations and we're pushing on the string a little bit less, but overall demand remains weak."
Richard Fairbank, Capital One's leader, in making the point that gains in lending have been tough despite some signs of improvement, Sept. 14
"We're going to earn it all back — whatever it is."
Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Sept. 15
"Getting this agency off the ground will be an enormously important task … and that task is something I've asked Elizabeth to take on. Secretary Geithner and I agree Elizabeth is the best person to stand this agency up."
President Obama, on naming Warren as an administration official in charge of setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Sept. 17
"There's no question from anybody in leadership. When everyone's present, they're saying, 'You are going to be the next chairman.' "
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., Sept. 22
"We don't have population growth in any of our markets. We're … growing from taking share from other banks."
Mary W. Navarro, retail and business banking director at Huntington, justifying the extra money needed to extend branch hours, Sept. 24
"With this broader data source, for the first time Fincen will have the ability for the government to essentially create baselines of what is normal activity when you are talking about funds flows between the United States and jurisdictions."
James Freis, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, on a proposal to require all banks to report all international wire transfers, Sept. 27
"If we use this moment to rethink our approach to regulating financial services, then we can seize the opportunity to do something unexpected — and exceptional."
Elizabeth Warren, as assistant to the president and adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, on the need to work with banks to create better consumer protections, Sept. 30
"I have to deliver on market share growth. I would prefer a more high-growth number for the economy. That would be very helpful."
Bharat Masrani, TD Bank's CEO, discussing the pressure — and risk — of emphasizing market share in a downturn, Oct. 7
"If I was on a board and thought I was a token to get to the right ratio … I would feel marginalized. … I don't think it would be healthy."
Susan Bies, a Bank of America board member, explaining her disdain for quotas in the name of diversity, Oct. 8
"The big disincentive is the time it takes and a business model that's running on speed — on Dexedrine."
Max Gardner, a N.C. consumer bankruptcy lawyer, on one of the reasons mortgage servicers and custodians might still be reluctant to track down missing documents in foreclosure fights, Oct. 25
"Under Basel [III], the sweet-spot business model for banks in the developed world will be to take deposits from mom and pop … and lend to big businesses."
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup CEO, Oct. 26
"I think we're in the midst of a boom, frankly, or the early start of a boom in the merger market in the Northeast. This is a sign that deals beget deals."
Mark Fitzgibbon, analyst with Sandler O'Neill & Partners, after six community bank acquisitions were announced over three months, Nov. 3
