Tag Archives: Dodd-Frank

In a letter to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Director of Regulatory Affairs Alicia Nealon encouraged the NCUA to use its 2015 Regulatory Review as an opportunity to provide credit unions with regulatory relief.

A capital surcharge proposed by the Fed in December for eight U.S. banks that the Financial Stability Oversight Council designated as global systemically important banks is aimed at building additional resilience and lessening the chances of an institution's failure in proportion to risks the institution poses to the broader U.S. economy.

The hearing, titled "Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Stable?" was the first in a series of three full Committee hearings to examine the impact Dodd-Frank has had on American consumers and the country's financial system and economy since President Obama signed it in to law in July 2010. The focus of Thursday's hearing was on how the 400 new regulations enacted in the 2,300-page law is a threat to the country's financial stability.

Some members of the Subcommittee contended at the hearing that Dodd-Frank is codifying "too big to fail" by continuing to designate firms (both banks and non-banks) as SIFIs, therefore guaranteeing those firms a federal backstop should a financial crisis occur.

"Since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, there has been much discussion by members of Congress, regulators, and academic experts related to the designation and regulatory standards for bank holding company SIFIs," the Committee wrote in a memorandum about Wednesday's hearing.

“In this scenario, economic factors in the United States reflect a contracting economy marked with rising unemployment, widening credit spreads, low treasury yields, declining asset prices and near-term inflationary pressures brought about by a considerable rise in the price of oil,” the Association reported.

Four Democratic U.S. Senators, Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Jeff Merkley (Oregon), Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), and Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), have introduced an amendment aimed at preventing future administrations from weakening financial regulations, according to an announcement on Warren's website.

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will convene on that day to discuss the controversial piece of legislature, which was enacted in 2010 in response to the financial crisis. The Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Representative Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin), has been an outspoken critic of Dodd-Frank.