July 22, 2010

President Signs Dodd-Frank Bill; AmBA Reiterates Disappointment With Legislation
AmBA reiterated its disappointment with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that President Obama signed into law yesterday. “While the [legislation] does contain some key reform provisions that bankers support, it also contains a tsunami of new rules and restrictions for traditional banks that had nothing to do with causing the financial crisis in the first place,” AmBA President and CEO Ed Yingling said.

Yingling explained that implementing the bill will be challenging for regulators. “The result will be over 5,000 pages of new regulations on traditional banks and years of uncertainty as to what the massive new rules will mean,” he said. “The impact of these rules will be very real and will be felt not only by banks, but by consumers, businesses and the broader economy.”

Yingling emphasized that AmBA “stands ready to work with regulators to ensure that they have the information they need to make the regulatory process as effective and efficient as possible.” To help bankers prepare for the new rules, AmBA has established a special Regulatory Reform Center web page: aba.com/RegReform. There bankers can find a comprehensive summary of the act along with charts showing rulemaking dates and effective dates.


July 21, 2010

Dodd-Frank Signed Into Law
Today, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act pledging that it ended tax-funded bailouts. The President spent considerable time talking about consumer protection, but noted encouragingly that “The fact is, the financial industry is central to our nation’s ability to grow, to prosper, to compete and to innovate. There are a lot of banks that understand and fulfill this vital role, and there are a whole lot of bankers who want to do right — and do right — by their customers. This reform will help foster innovation, not hamper it. It is designed to make sure that everybody follows the same set of rules, so that firms compete on price and quality, not on tricks and not on traps.” 

President Obama concluded his remarks with the following “In the end, our financial system only works — our market is only free — when there are clear rules and basic safeguards that prevent abuse, that check excess, that ensure that it is more profitable to play by the rules than to game the system. And that’s what these reforms are designed to achieve — no more, no less. Because that’s how we will ensure that our economy works for consumers, that it works for investors, that it works for financial institutions — that it works for all of us. … Ultimately, there’s no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or fall together as one nation. So these reforms will help lift our economy and lead all of us to a stronger, more prosperous future.”

While the President spoke carefully about “unscrupulous lenders” and noted the importance of the banks that do right by their customers, the White House also released a far less measured video to “explain” Wall Street Reform that continued the tone of bank bashing. It remains to be seen where the Administration’s leadership will point the new Bureau.

Going forward, ABA will be active in the implementation of regulatory reform to support common rules that simplify disclosures and improve transaction transparency as well as assure fair treatment of customers that respects their informed and responsible choices.