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The regulatory risk from Basel III, Dodd-Frank and other pressures will keep banks from growing, and the economy can't grow, if banks don't.
August 27 -
Dodd-Frank just turned two, but it'll be old before its time writes Dimitri B. Papadimitriou of Bard College. The legislation falls prey to the same flaw of most financial regulation: aiming to solve the last crisis instead of the next, he argues.
August 14 -
Lawmakers have set $10 billion in assets as a dividing line between small and large banks for regulatory purposes. That's left bankers at Trustmark's Gerard Host and other institutions that are approaching the cutoff with a choice: Deliberately limit their size or pursue acquisitions to solidly cross the threshold.
August 14
Just in case you thought otherwise, the Treasury Department has released an
"We recognize that small banks were not the cause of the financial crisis," the Treasury wrote in its
The graphic offers a few specifics on how Wall Street reform (i.e. the Dodd-Frank Act) aids these integral institutions. For instance, the Treasury asserts, raising FDIC coverage to $250,000 per account from $100,000 allows small banks to attract more deposits and ultimately make more loans. It also suggests the power to regulate nonbanks granted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau helps small banks stay competitive in growing markets, since they are no longer up against unsupervised operators.
However, the majority of the Treasury's argument seems to rely on the $10 billion-asset dividing line written into the law. By exempting small banks from certain rules bigger financial institutions are now subject to – such as CFPB examinations and new derivatives laws – Dodd-Frank has created "a level playing for them," it says.
The infographic is the Treasury's latest attempt at breaking down the benefits it says Dodd-Frank affords small financial institutions. It released a 16-slide Power Point
Treasury spokeswoman Suzanne Elio declined to provide specifics as to why the infographic was being released now, other than to refer to the statement made in the blog post: "We often receive questions about how Main Street banks are affected by the historic law."
If prior
What's your take on the Treasury's assessment of Dodd-Frank? What impact, if any, do you think Wall Street reform had on Main Street banks? Let us know in the comments section below.
Jeanine Skowronski is the deputy editor of BankThink.