"Small banks received special attention - and critical relief - in the Dodd-Frank Act and proposals tied to Basel III. Both include new minimum capital ratios, but banking companies with less than $500 million of assets are exempt from those requirements," writes American Banker's Andy Peters.
The small thrifts, however, were shortchanged as holding companies for savings and loans with $500 million or less in assets were excluded from the capital exemptions embedded in Dodd-Frank.
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act allows more banking companies to deregister as public companies, providing a way for them to lower their regulatory costs. However, the JOBS Act specifically uses the term "bank" further excluding any thrifts.
"Thrifts had a good record of not doing subprime lending, but they had to pay higher insurance premiums as a result of the financial crisis," says Kip Weissman, a partner at Luse Gorman Pomerenk & Schick. "After all that, Congress forgets them on banking statute after banking statute."
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