Dodd-Frank

One purpose of the Senate bill was for small banks to rein in skyrocketing costs, but some bankers question whether the changes will save them money, and adapting to the reforms may even increase spending.

In his last major speech as the agency’s No. 2, Thomas Hoenig said it would be a “serious policy mistake” to relax measures such as the supplementary leverage ratio, but he was more open to regulatory relief in other areas.

Congress has left Washington for a two-week recess, and credit union leaders are being urged to make their case for reg relief while legislators are back at home.

The biggest legacy of the current regulatory relief effort may be the increasing focus on whether organizing banks in supervisory buckets by asset size makes sense. Yet the bill deals with just one of the two big asset thresholds in the law.

As the agency pulls back its enforcement efforts, it opens the door for state authorities to pursue more cases against financial startups for their data collection and privacy practices.

The regulatory relief bill frees some regional banks from the tough supervision reserved for larger companies, but regulators still can subject them to onerous requirements.

The information collection effort is consistent with acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney's efforts to set the agency on a more pro-industry, anti-enforcement course.

While regulatory relief legislation would raise the asset threshold for “systemically important” banks, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank could still apply prudential scrutiny to banks below that new cutoff.

Just as promised, Republican lawmakers went to work Wednesday considering regulatory reform ideas that would go further than the Senate's tweaks of the Dodd-Frank Act.

GOP senators push House colleagues not to change Dodd-Frank rollback bill; agencies respond to consumer complaints about debt collectors.