Comments of the Week: Fair Lending Insanity; Split Chairman and CEO Roles?
May 17, 2013 9:39 AM
American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.
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On 28% of consumers saying they would switch banks if their current branches closed:
"An alternative headline could have been: '72% of Consumers Don't Care about Bank Branches.'"
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On the Brown-Vitter bill's shortcomings:
"Reducing the viability of one segment of the banking industry will do little to enhance the success of the other. There may be emotional satisfaction
in crippling large banks, but it is naive at best to think that more major legislative surgery on the banking industry
will leave community banks unscathed."
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On the Brown-Vitter bill's merits:
"Two-tiered regulation - one for huge, highly complex institutions and one for small institutions - is all we need."
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On a warning from Pimco's Scott Simon that housing will collapse if the GSEs get out of the market:
"The sooner we get the GSEs out of the mortgage business, the sooner we insulate taxpayers from potential hundreds of billions of potential bailouts. Should the outcome be higher rates to compensate for risk then so be it. Mispriced residential financing is not a right."
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On whether the chairman and CEO role at banks should be split:
"The single biggest failing of CEOs in general is that they can start to think they are infallible. Arrogance will bring down a CEO faster than anything else, and having an outside chair can help the CEO from falling into that trap."
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On the possibility of balancing out a chairman-CEO with a strong lead director:
"The 'lead director' concept is confusing for the majority of investors and stakeholders alike. The Chairman of the Board is a title that is much clearer concept
In the end, splitting the position of chairman and CEO would be better for the majority of banks."
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On a bank discrimination lawsuit highlighting insanity over fair lending laws:
"Insanity is what you inevitably get when social engineers impose credit allocation on a market system."
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On a bank discrimination lawsuit highlighting insanity over fair lending laws:
"Insanity is what you get when you unilaterally attempt to treat any class differently than another in the public marketplace. If you want to go private and leave the public marketplace, then go private. But, you can't expect the public to protect you
if you want to operate by your own rules."
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On online lenders threatening small banks' advantage of fast loan approvals:
"Technology is nice, but credit decision-making without any human interaction is not something I would institutionally aspire to."
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On online lenders threatening small banks' advantage of fast loan approvals:
"Speed is not usually the most important determinant for choosing a lender, as long as it is 'reasonable' to the borrower. Nothing is said about the cost/interest rate of these immediate loans."
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On banks' struggle to find short-term credit alternatives to payday loans:
"If the payday lenders are so bad, it should be easy to compete with them by offering a superior product."
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