Did examiners get too cozy with the big banks they were charged with supervising?
Reasonable people will disagree, but Peggy Twohig certainly isn't going to wade into the debate.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's nonbank supervision chief said Wednesday that, unlike the prudential regulators, the bureau's examiners will not be embedded in the large companies they oversee. Asked if the decision was in response to criticism that other embedded regulators were too lax, Twohig said, to knowing laughter from the crowd at a National Community Reinvestment Coalition conference in Washington, "I don't want to comment on how that worked out for them."
To be fair, Twohig said, "When you have safety and soundness responsibilities, you have to be in there. That's deep, ongoing work."
The bureau, which plans continuous supervision of large institutions, only has responsibility for overseeing compliance with consumer financial laws, Twohig said.
"It's just a different orientation, a different set of priorities, a different model," she said.
