‘Doesn’t Congress have more important things?’: Comments of the week

April 21, 2017 8:30 AM

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Readers sound off an attempt to block prepaid regulations, threats to consumer privacy, FSOC’s political bent, the proper use for SARs, and more.

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On an effort by some lawmakers to unwind prepaid card rules using the Congressional Review Act (via <a href="https://twitter.com/jentescher/status/855053528229916672" target="_blank">Twitter</a>):

“Doesn't Congress have more important things to do than relitigate new # prepaid rules?”

Related article:

Legislative challenge to prepaid rule is an affront to consumers

On a call for financial companies to strengthen how they protect consumers’ privacy:

“Valid points and a concern. What I am trying to figure out is why folks such as yourself, bank trade groups, and consumer privacy groups have not addressed the new Bank Secrecy Rules that come into play in 2018. Bank customers can no longer expect any privacy with regard to what the government demands to know from us about our customers. We will be forced to ‘interview our customers’ and then make sure they operate their accounts as disclosed in the interview. PLEASE TAKE A LOOK.”

Related article:

Congress killed consumer data privacy. Industry should revive it

In agreement with bank CEOs that asset thresholds set by the Dodd-Frank Act are too arbitrary:

“We have long known that the ‘arbitrary bright lines’ of $10B and $50B were created as a regulatory convenience, and are not really reflective of a bank's risk tolerance or business model. Some $20B banks are more like community banks in their products and practices, and some $5B banks are involved in much more sophisticated lending and other practices outside of their local footprint, etc. Adopting a more business/risk focused system would be best, and raising them a short term solution.”

Related article:

Midsize banks on Dodd-Frank relief: Raise the asset thresholds

On an op-ed accusing the Financial Stability Oversight Council of being a political body rather than analytical systemic risk regulator:

“Systemic risk is almost exclusively political risk, i.e., the agents of political desires be they the treasury, sponsored entities or favored crony capitalists, will borrow excessively because they are freed of market constraints. The FSOC was created to protect this excess, not to prevent it.”

Related article:

FSOC is too political to be taken seriously

On banks’ use of suspicious activity reports to catch criminals:

“Lol! You do know that the whole purpose of a SAR is to bring suspicious activity to the attention of law enforcement. I'm not aware of any bank that wouldn't call 911 following an armed robbery. BSA is the government passing on the work, responsibility and cost of their jobs to the banks and other financial institutions.”

Related article:

Should banks be criminally liable for not reporting fishy emails?

On the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposing a SAR reporting addition related to cyber-events:

“Banks and credit unions are already required to provide detailed & timely incident reports to their primary federal regulator. This FinCen requirement is duplicative, expensive and unnecessary. The primary federal regulators are all at the table reviewing the SARs that are filed, so FinCen just needs them to provide the incident reports to it, if they feel a need to have them in their database. This is a great example of why a bank and a credit union disappear each business day...”

Related article:

Should banks be criminally liable for not reporting fishy emails