'Cheech and Chong SARs': Comments of the Week
August 15, 2014 7:30 AM
American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles, except where noted.
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On Fincen Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery's response to concerns that no one reads suspicious activity reports:
"So will FinCEN say that nearly 40% of SARs are not even reviewed? Just doing the math: Of the 290,000 filed in the first quarter of 2014, only 180,000 were 'reviewed,' meaning that 110,000 were not reviewed, or 38% filed to apparently no purpose."
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(Image: Bloomberg News)
On Fincen Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery's response to concerns that no one reads suspicious activity reports:
"Ms. Calvery assured bankers that all those SARs they've been filing, including those 'Cheech & Chong SARs' that related solely to
weed
are not being eaten by FinCEN's pet goat.
[But] knowing that 38% of the SARs filed are not reviewed doesn't exactly fill me with anything other than inertia. How about you?" (Via Bank Lawyer's Blog )
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On a warning that underperforming banks must fold or be sold:
"The essential message here is that large scale consolidation particularly in market is necessary to remove excess capacity and reduce costs."
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On a warning that underperforming banks must fold or be sold:
"I agree that underperforming banks should consider selling, even if only for modest premiums. But what will compel them to? Shareholders can't force a sale, and they are easily misled by management teams.
Sometimes shareholders mislead themselves about what weaker institutions are capable of."
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On a warning that underperforming banks must fold or be sold:
"If we can get any regulatory relief from the next administration, that will help. And certainly the reduction of branching will lower costs. But community banking will survive as it has, despite the changes and the feds."
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On a warning that underperforming banks must fold or be sold:
"It is actually not that hard to cut expenses by 10%, 20% or even 50%. In fact, it is rather simple. Think branch network!"
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On a call for bank regulators to provide clear standards for acceptable living wills:
"Clear standards and bright-line tests give companies ways to wriggle outside the standard and the line. It's better to set up a standard like: will it work? That way the company has to face reality instead of hiring legal and accounting weasels to make up some words that allow them to keep operating in the same old way."
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On the possibility that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may issue rules for virtual currencies like Bitcoin:
"The CFPB has missed roughly 40% of its initial rule-making requirements set forth in its enabling legislation. Shouldn't it clear those before jumping into an issue that is not yet a problem?"
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(Image: Marc Hochstein)
On the CFPB's warning to consumers about the risks of cryptocurrencies:
"For the same reasons, they are also a risk to business and, if they were to ever become a prevalent means of exchange, a systemic risk. There is no government, insurance behind them when confidence or the economy falls, [n]or are they supported by a commodity or instrument of value."
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On the difficulty replacing tech personnel who understand legacy core systems that run on old mainframe computers:
"If banks are going to be able to staff these open positions, I believe there will need to be both an increased number of colleges offering these skills plus some banks will need to invest more developing internal training programs to provide these niche skills."
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