'Most Bankers Owe Their Livelihood to Regulators': Comments of the Week
October 4, 2013 8:26 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.
(Image: Thinkstock)
On whether bankers should treat regulators as allies or adversaries:
"In the push towards automation, most banking managers I've worked with see the regulators as allies in helping then sell the need to their senior management. At the troop level, most bankers owe their livelihood to the regulator. It's at the senior levels where regulation is still seen as a burden and cost."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On the Financial Services Roundtable's Tim Pawlenty predicting GSE reform won't happen until 2015:
"Tell us something we don't already know."
Related Article:
(Image: Bloomberg News)
On whether the implementation of Dodd-Frank should be slowed down:
"Dodd-Frank never was a solution to the problems we experienced and failed to address the GSEs, a rather large oversight."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On whether the current regulatory crackdown signals the end of online lending:
"There are many products and services that have different regulations in different jurisdictions. The Internet has made it much easier for people to transact outside of their local market. Regulation needs to catch up."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On New York regulators' crackdown on online lenders with tribal ties:
"New York's banking regulators must be suffering from some strange ocular defect: They can't see the 'too big to fail' operations on Wall Street, but claim to have a bead on the actions of tribes located thousands of miles away."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On whether online home-price estimators distort the market:
Automated valuation models "are similar to pricing art by the square inch or sculpture by the pound. There is no consideration of taste, condition, use of space, etc."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On whether online home-price estimators distort the market:
"They are not a perfect solution for every transaction, but are a good starting point and in aggregate can be considered reliable."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On whether online home-price estimators should be regulated:
"AVMs are not only worthless for reliable valuation, but they are a large factor in deceptive valuation, and could be detrimental to the country's economy."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On the possibility that banks may eventually pay more for deposits:
"I hope our memories are not so short as to have forgotten the lessons we learned (or should have learned) from the 70s and early 80s. Institutions need to 'earn a nickel' on their deposits."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On why selling a bank can be preferable to raising capital:
"Washington has made the environment for community banks so tough that raising new capital to survive or grow in more stable environments is nearly out of the question at a value better than selling or merging."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
On Comptroller Thomas Curry's warning that 'satisfactory' won't cut it for banks:
"At what point do investors flee the industry due to banking being reduced to a department within the federal and state regulatory bureaucracy?"
Related Article:
(Image: Bloomberg News)
On the complexity of Basel capital standards:
"One of the most concerning considerations of the current state of play is that the implementation of the rules have become too obscure, too much subject to interpretation, and therefore to lobbying."
Related Article:
(Image: Thinkstock)
