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'A complex and unworkable mess': Comments of the week

By Rachel Witkowski
September 5, 2019 9:30 PM

Readers strongly react to whether the CFPB should have a say on bank mergers and if tribal areas should have special CRA credit, debate whether banks are embracing enough technology and more.

CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger
Kathleen Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), waits to begin a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, March 7, 2019. Chairwoman Maxine Waters is seeking information from the CFPB about recent settlements that did not include consumer relief and asking staff employees to blow the whistle on actions they see as weakening consumer protection. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
On whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should also have a say, like prudential bank regulators do, on bank merger applications:

"Endless proliferation of agencies with the same task creates a complex and unworkable mess."

Related: CFPB should have a say in bank mergers
CFPB headquarters
Signage is displayed outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters will hold a hearing this week on the semi-annual review of the CFPB. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Another reader responds to whether the CFPB should decide on bank mergers, particularly if one of the banks was previously cited by the bureau:

"CFPB was/is an ill-conceived and ineffective bureau that was built on platitudes and feel-good intentions, but short on any substance or reason. So dream on, dreamer."

Related: CFPB should have a say in bank mergers
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Another reader is against allowing the CFPB to have a say on bank mergers, like prudential regulators currently have:

"Adding an agency that does not have safety & soundness as its primary concern makes the process a mess analytically and a public media circus politically."

Related: CFPB should have a say in bank mergers
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MONUMENT VALLEY, USA - SEPTEMBER 22: Road of Monument Valeey on Sepetmeber 22, 2011. Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes.
On a push by Native American tribes and some banks to include Community Reinvestment Act credit for investing on tribal lands:

“You can’t have it both ways with tribes claiming to be sovereign nations within the boundaries of the U.S., but then wanting banks . . . to come into your nation without strong assurances from the governing body about the ability to protect its interests. That dog just doesn’t hunt.”

Related: Tribes push for historic carve-out in CRA reform plan
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Artificial intelligence Machine Learning Business Internet Technology Concept.
On whether traditional banks face obsolescence by not embracing technology:

"Banks that fail to embrace new technologies to deliver products and services to a changing demographic are headed for irrelevance. But banking has . . . overcome existential challenges before. I think they will again."

Related: Traditional banks continue to flirt with obsolescence
Deutsche Bank signage sits on the side of a branch in Hamburg, Germany.
Deutsche Bank AG signage sits on the side of a branch in Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. Deutsche Bank plans to buy back about $5.4 billion of bonds in euros and dollars as it seeks to allay investor concerns about its finances. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
On Deutsche Bank's response to an earlier op-ed by Better Markets criticizing the global bank's restructuring plan:

"In our op-ed (by Better Markets), we discussed Deutsche Bank's reported intent to decrease capital and return that capital to shareholders. We said that would be irresponsible and jeopardize the financial resiliency of the single bank that the IMF recently concluded was the most important net contributor to systemic risk in the global banking system."

Related: Deutsche Bank’s CFO: ‘We are taking our responsibilities seriously'
James von Moltke, chief financial officer of Deutsche Bank.
Another reader reacts to a Deutsche Bank top executive defending their massive restructuring plan in response criticisms in an earlier op-ed:

"Better Markets just got taken to the woodshed."

Related: Deutsche Bank’s CFO: ‘We are taking our responsibilities seriously'
Rachel Witkowski
Tech reporter, Financial Planning
M&A Law and regulation CRA Fintech Consumer banking Restructuring CFPB Deutsche Bank
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