'Community Banks Take a Hit Again': Comments of the Week
September 6, 2013 11:13 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.
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On whether the latest Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) proposal favors big banks:
"Not only have [big banks] escaped all accountability for precipitating the mortgage mess that became a global financial crisis - they are now escaping the regulatory reforms that were supposed to restrict their ability to repeat their nefarious practices."
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On whether the latest QRM proposal favors big banks:
"The risk retention conversation should really be about who retains the risk, not the size of the bank."
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On regulators' softening of the QRM risk-retention rule:
"For community banks who keep all of the risk retention by holding residential mortgages for the life of the loan
there is no exemption to QM. But for the fat cats who brokered 100% LTV loans based on stated income and packaged them into junk mortgage-backed securities, the regulators have decided to grant flexibility. These are the loans that caused the crisis, and yet community banks again take the hit."
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On whether the latest QRM proposal undermines Dodd-Frank by adopting the separate Qualified Mortgage standards:
"Making the two congruous makes sense, unless you have no faith in the ability of either provision of [the Dodd-Frank Act] to work."
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On the view that 'impossible' regulations are weeding out small banks:
"We were originally chartered as a national bank and can attest to the overzealous, ignore-the-facts, agenda-driven supervision
We actually quantified, in hard dollars, what the OCC cost us during the formal agreement
in excess of $1.25 million. Talk about risk to capital!
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On a call to break up the rating agency oligopoly:
"Any proposal that begins with 'regulators should force this particular restructuring of the [insert here] industry and micromanage its operation' is prima facie wrongheaded."
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On a call to break up the rating agency oligopoly:
"What should happen, in a perfect world, are independent ratings."
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On the assertion that transparency is coming to virtual currencies:
"Whatever policy [regulators] end up making is going to be rendered unenforceable." (Via Reddit)
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On the assertion that transparency is coming to virtual currencies:
"Sure it is. Just as transparency is coming to the government." (Via Reddit)
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On whether anonymity needs to be a feature of all virtual currencies:
"Not every coin will use anonymity. Not everyone wants anonymity. People want to be able to shop and not have what they purchased be traced back to them, but people don't necessarily want to hide the fact that they made a purchase." (Via Reddit)
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On that assertion that Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo is responsible for the central bank's low morale:
"Given the Fed's track record with systemic risk management and its current lead role, maybe it needs a bully to get it right next time!"
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Image: Bloomberg News
On the view that debit cards will be bolstered by cost efficiencies, even as interchange revenues fall:
"The relative cost efficiencies once true for debit are not necessarily true in an environment where checks are handled as electronic transactions."
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