SIFIs

The administration says it wants to focus on risky activities as opposed to individual nonbank firms. But there are big questions with that.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council announced Wednesday that it was rescinding the SIFI label for Prudential, a culmination of almost a decade of fierce debate about how regulators should address the risk of nonbank financial firms.

BofA hasn’t taken advantage of the benefits of owning Merrill Lynch; weakness seen despite stronger bank earnings.

The heavy workload is not limited to implementing the financial regulatory reform bill enacted last spring, as the agencies also work to craft reforms of the Community Reinvestment Act and adjust key capital measures for the biggest banks.

Credit unions would not be impacted by the proposal, but the movement has spent much of the last decade telling lawmakers and regulators CUs are being punished for the actions of big banks that led to the financial crisis.

The legislation would require the restructuring of financial institutions that have a total exposure exceeding 3% of the nation’s GDP.

Financial regulators sought to walk a fine line Tuesday between reassuring Republican senators that they are quickly implementing regulatory relief and defending themselves against Democratic criticism that they are going too fast.

Fed Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles said in written testimony that the central bank plans to move quickly to determine how to regulate banks between $100 billion and $250 billion of assets, and that it may provide also relief for banks over the $250 billion threshold.

Republicans are calling on the central bank to relieve all banks with less than $250 billion of assets from enhanced supervision that was established after the crisis.

HSBC’s Diane Reyes has spent much of the past year spreading this message to the roughly 10,000 employees she leads: Conduct counts.