-
Big bank deals will worsen systemic risks and unfair competition, said the ICBA, which called for a moratorium while new regulations are in the works. Capital One argued the deal would create a safer company.
September 20 -
The Massachusetts Democrat said housing advocates' fight against a key reform of Dodd-Frank would hurt the low-income borrowers they are trying to help.
September 20 -
Dodd-Frank failed to cure key structural shortcomings of mortgage servicing that are still harming consumers, says Raj Date, the interim leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
September 20 -
At a community banking panel at this year's American Banker Regulatory Symposium, the consensus held that regulation can't be a one-size-fits-all practice.
September 20 -
Executives tell symposium audience that Basel committee's surcharge on systemically important firms will impede economic growth.
September 19 -
Robert G. Wilmers, the head of M&T Bank, came to the nation's capital Monday with an unfavorable assessment of whether the Dodd-Frank Act will do what lawmakers intended.
September 19 -
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said Republicans were deliberately trying to prevent credible nominees from being confirmed to regulatory posts, and their legislative attempts to reform the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seem like moves meant to impede the bureau's progress.
September 19 -
OCC head tells American Banker regulatory symposium that banks could face restitution after complaint reviews. Gruenberg, meanwhile, announces FDIC community-bank initiatives.
September 19
WASHINGTON — A top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee said Tuesday she is disappointed that the GOP has not been able to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since taking control of the House in January.
"It's been seven months. I'm surprised that we haven't been able to do more. I really am," Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who chairs the House financial institutions and consumer credit subcommittee, said in response to an audience question at the American Banker Regulatory Symposium.
Capito, R-W.Va., acknowledged that a split in the Republican ranks has contributed to the party's failure so far to take more decisive action to wind down Fannie and Freddie.
There are Republicans on the committee who would like Fannie and Freddie to cease to exist within two or three years, according to Capito, but she is not one of them.
"I have serious hesitation into that dramatic way of solving a problem that we obviously need to solve," Capito said.
Earlier at the same conference, Rep. Barney Frank, the panel's ranking Democrat, chastised House Republicans for saying when they were out of power that they had a plan to wind down Fannie and Freddie, and then failing to act now.
Some Republicans want to turn over mortgage lending almost entirely to the private sector, while others agree with Democrats that there needs to be some form of government guarantee, he said.
"The Republicans … on our committee are torn between their ideology and reality," Frank said.
But Capito said that the Obama administration needs to contribute more to the eventual resolution of the two mortgage giants. A Treasury Department white paper, which presented three broad options for the future of Fannie and Freddie, was too vague, she said.
"We can't do this alone," Capito said.
Also, in her prepared remarks, Capito cited the Dodd-Frank Act as an example of what congressional Republicans consider excessive regulation that is choking job growth.
"We are creating jobs," she said sarcastically. "We're creating jobs for compliance officers."
She said that the GOP leadership on the House Financial Services Committee has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to clear out old, unused regulations. Despite promises that the administration would do so, Capito is skeptical that it will happen.
"I'm not certain that we're going to get a positive answer to that," she said.
Capito also took issue with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was a key part of Dodd-Frank, which she voted against.
"Does the mere creation of a new bureaucracy guarantee better consumer protection?" Capito asked. "There are reams, reams of laws already on the books that were supposed to help consumers, and there were multiple agencies charged with enforcing these."
But Capito acknowledged that the CFPB is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. She would like to see changes to the bureau's structure, including the replacement of the CFPB's director position with a five-member commission.
She also tweaked Frank, who in late 2009 passed a House bill that would have established the CFPB as an agency with a five-member board. The Massachusetts Democrat later was part of the group of lawmakers that merged the House bill with the Senate bill, resulting in the creation of a CFPB headed by a single director.
More recently, as Republicans have called for a five-member board, Frank has opposed the measure.
"He thought that was a good idea a couple of years ago," Capito said.
