No surprise: one of the bankers interviewed in last week's article questioning a key argument against the creation of a consumer financial protection agency ["
"I have not talked with a fellow community banker who doesn't think they will be profoundly affected by the rulemaking authority of the [CFPA]," Jeffrey Szyperski, chief executive officer of Chesapeake Bank in Kilmarnock, Va., wrote in a comment submitted on American Banker's Web site.
But Szyperski said community bankers have an even bigger beef with other regulatory changes lawmakers are debating. "The big elephant in the room is the stripping of regulation for banks with less than $50 billion in assets from the Fed, combined with the New York Fed president being a presidential appointee," he wrote.
"The combination of those two will effectively carve community banks out of input to monetary policy via the FOMC. The long-term effects of that are immense. Yes, the [CFPA] will have an adverse effect on community banks, but these other two provisions, I feel, are even bigger."
The article did have some fans. The Columbia Journalism Review praised it, along with other publications, for being critical of the banking industry's take.
