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In the battle over the potential negative effects for community banks from the Dodd-Frank Act, it all comes down to the Durbin amendment.
April 6 -
Opponents of a rule to limit debit card interchange are making the most of an opportunity after the Fed acknowledged it would not make an April 21 deadline to finalize the regulation.
April 5 -
The banking industry saw the first tangible signs of progress Tuesday in its fight to overturn the Durbin amendment, as lawmakers officially introduced bills that would delay ...
March 15 -
In a rare show of unity, the leading bank and credit union industry groups filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief to support TCF's lawsuit looking to block implementation of the Durbin amendment.
March 11 -
Several bankers spoke directly with top Fed officials on Thursday, arguing that if they finalized their interchange rule, it would gut industry profits and hurt consumers.
March 10
WASHINGTON — Rep. Barney Frank, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, denied Thursday that he and Chairman Spencer Bachus were at work on a corrections bill to the Dodd-Frank Act enacted last year, saying only two parts of the law need to be addressed: executive compensation disclosure requirements and debit interchange fee restrictions.
The Massachusetts Democrat said last year during the final hours of the conference committee that tweaks to regulatory reform would have to be made, but told reporters on Thursday he now only sees the need for alterations in those two areas.
Speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Frank said he was optimistic the Senate would soon act on a bill from Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., that would delay for two years a rule that would restrict interchange fees on debit cards. He said the critical moment came in February when Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the rule could hurt small banks despite an exemption in the law for institutions with less than $10 billion of assets.
"In the Senate, I think it's very much in play," Frank said. "I think what happened was when the regulators said — Sheila Bair and Ben Bernanke in particular — said they did not think the exemption for small banks and credit unions would work, the political landscape changed."
Frank said the House would wait to see if the Senate would act, but if it does, a bill could be enacted quickly.
"If something passes the Senate I believe it will move in the House very quickly," he said. "I think it's unlikely that the House will act before the Senate does… I think this is one of those things that really depends on the Senate."
Like many other lawmakers, Frank said the Fed's December proposal to cap debit interchange fees at 12 cents went too far.
"Some restriction on the fee would be good but not the extent to which we narrowed them," Frank said.
Frank said he would also like to revisit a provision of Dodd-Frank that would force companies and issuers to disclose the median of the annual total compensation of all employees except the chief executive officer. The provision was added by an amendment from Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
"The problem is now multinationals go across national lines… If it was defined country by country, I'd be fine," Frank said. "We need to revisit the swipe fees and I think the Menendez amendment should be refined."
For the past two days, Frank and Bachus have traded press releases on whether a corrections bill was in the works. Bachus told Congressional Quarterly that the two lawmakers have discussed a corrections bill, but Frank issued a statement in response saying that was not true. Bachus office responded by posting video of Frank last year saying a corrections bill was needed.
"I don't know what Spencer was thinking about," Frank said. "Apparently Spencer Bachus has been discussing with my Avatar whether there would or not there would be one."
During the press conference, Frank also responded to Republican attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Bachus has introduced a bill that would replace the CFPB's director with a five member commission. The Alabama Republican also supports moving its funding through the appropriations process.
But Frank said a committee structure did not make sense considering the difficulty in confirming any new positions in the Senate.
"For those who say 'oh we need to have a commission,' you can imagine where we would be with a commission, getting five confirmations to the Senate," Frank said. "Regardless of the statute, if we had to take five of those nominations, we could have massive excruciation because they couldn't get 60 votes."
Further, he said the Republican position on placing the new agency on the appropriations process conflicted with their previous support for making other financial regulators independently funded.
"When the issue was the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight that supervised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… they wanted to remove it from the appropriations process," Frank said. "Basically if you decide you like the agency, you don't want it subject to restraints."
