BY T. Rann Paynter
President and CEO, Michigan Bankers Association
This month marks the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act - a sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulation. Five years in, we're at a good vantage point to evaluate how the law is working so far. No law passed by Congress is perfect, and the evidence is clear the Dodd-Frank requires some tweaking to make it work better in several areas.
For example, as a result of Dodd-Frank's mortgage rules, many community banks are getting out of the home loan business altogether or drastically cutting back - often in the rural and underserved areas that most need credit. And the Dodd-Frank caps on what banks can charge retail stores to process debit card transactions have forced many banks to end free checking because retailers didn't want to pay their fair share.
These examples take into account the additional hidden costs of complying with more than 10,000 of pages of Dodd-Frank regulations that affect community banks. A new regulation or a bill in Congress may not come with a price tag, but banks have to hire new staff and outside contractors to help it navigate a world with so many new regulatory landmines. Those costs function as a hidden federal tax on bank customers.
Fortunately, there are a number of proposals on Capitol Hill to correct some of the problems in Dodd-Frank. Bipartisan measures in both houses of Congress would allow mortgages to receive the legal protections of "Qualified Mortgage" status if banks keep the loans on their own books rather than selling them on the secondary market. When banks hold loans in portfolio, they also hold the risk. As a result, these loans are properly underwritten and closely scrutinized by regulators to make sure they're safe.
Another issue in Dodd-Frank is that the thresholds for what banks get extra regulatory scrutiny were set too low. Many small and midsize banks are finding themselves forced to conduct expensive and unnecessary stress testing - taking time away from and raising costs for their customers - and many banks with traditional business models are being captured by the regulatory regime designed for the mega, internationally active banks with complex operations.
A bill from Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama would raise those thresholds, and a new bill - introduced by Rep. Scott Tipton of Colorado would require regulators to carefully tailor rules to the different kinds of banks they supervise.
These fixes would go a long way toward replacing the one-size-fits-none regulatory regime of Dodd-Frank with a more flexible approach that aligns with the different business models, customer bases, risk profiles and asset sizes of America's 6,400 banks.
No law is perfect. But based on what we have seen, it's time for Congress to look at these and other reasonable changes that would improve the law and better serve customers. Fixing Dodd-Frank would help ensure the law does what was intended - building a more stable financial system that supports the health of banks, in Michigan and around the country, and their communities.
Published: Mon, Jul 27, 2015
