Reforming the Regulation of Community Banks after Dodd Frank (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Impact of Dodd-Frank on Community Banks
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013
The purpose of the Dodd-Frank Act was to protect consumers and the stability of the financial system. Community banks provide vital services to millions of Americans, many of whom would be underserved if the community bank model were broken or if community banks were to abandon lines of service. If community banks are forced to merge, consolidate, or go out of business as a result of Dodd-Frank, one result will be an even greater concentration of assets on the books of the "too-big-to-fail" banks. Another result will be that small businesses and individuals who do not fit neatly into standardized financial modeling, or who live outside of metropolitan areas served by larger banks, will find it more difficult to obtain credit. Neither of these outcomes will protect consumers, the financial system, or the recovery of the American economy. Community banks play a vital role in this nation's economy, particularly with respect to small businesses and rural communities, and their continued health and vitality is central to the nation's economic recovery. Community banks provide 48.1 percent of smallbusiness loans issued by US banks, 15.7 percent of residential mortgage lending, 43.8 percent of farmland lending, 42.8 percent of farm lending, and 34.7 percent of commercial real estate loans, and they held 20 percent of all retail deposits at US banks as of 2010. Community banks are a vital source of credit and banking services to rural communities. Community banks are four times more likely than large banks to have an office in rural counties. More than 1,200 US counties-with a combined population of 16 million Americans-would have severely limited banking access without community banks. Community banks were not responsible for the causes of the financial crisis determined by the authors of Dodd-Frank. Community banks did not engage in widespread subprime lending. They did not engage in securitization of subprime residential mortgages. Nor did they use derivatives to engage in risky speculation to maximize return. Community banks simply did not contribute to the financial crisis. Although policymakers enacted Dodd-Frank to avoid too-big-to-fail situations, in reality, its effect is the opposite. The act will force greater asset consolidation in fewer megabanks by increasing the competitive advantage large banks have over smaller banks.
Reforming the Regulation of Community
Indiana Law Journal, 2015
The regulatory framework for financial institutions in the United States imposes significant costs on community banks without providing benefits to consumers or the economy that justify those costs. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act builds on decades of "one-size-fits-all" regulation of financial institutions, an ill-conceived regulatory strategy that puts community banks at a competitive disadvantage as compared with their larger, more complex competitors. The imposition of regulatory burdens on community banks without attendant benefits ultimately harms both consumers and the economy by (1) forcing community banks to consolidate or go out of business, furthering the concentration of assets in a small number of megafinancial institutions; and (2) encouraging standardization of financial products, leaving millions of vulnerable borrowers without meaningful access to credit. Neither of these outcomes will protect consumers, the financial system, or the recovery of the American economy. Instead, radical reform of the existing regulatory structure is necessary to ensure the future of community banks.
the impact of the dodd-frank act on small banks
The Dodd-Frank Act is single longest bill ever passed by the U.S… The Dodd-Frank Act passed in reply to the latest financial meltdown, which applies to prevent further fraud and abuse in the markets, also geared toward protecting consumers with regulations like keeping borrowers from abusive lending conditions and mortgage practices by lenders. Dodd-Frank regulatory requirements set too many restrictions on local lenders and appraisers and that the Act created for large banks "too-big-to-fail". However, the small banks, which do not fit neatly into standardized financial modeling, will face unintended consequences, as increased operations costs, which lead to reduced income and limited potential growth. The Act created enormous difficulties on small banks, which has little to do with the financial crisis.
On the uniqueness of community banks
2005
To the public, all banks seem alike. But banking insiders make important distinctions between community banks and all other banks. Policymakers worry that community banks’ unique characteristics threaten their survival in the face of industry consolidation. However, despite dramatic regulatory and technological changes in the industry in the past two decades, community banks have not only survived but often prospered.
The Dodd-Frank Act Key Features, Implementation Progress, and Financial System Impact
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) of 2010 provides for a wide variety of new regulatory and supervisory initiatives with the goal to promote a safer and sounder banking system. Our paper puts Dodd-Frank into a historical perspective, identifies its key features, discusses the implementation progress, and assesses whether the law will accomplish its objectives. We conclude that the approach in the law to financial regulatory reform is best described as a Band-Aid approach to financial regulation. A better approach in our view is one that strengthens market discipline on bank risk-taking and enhances competition so as to reduce the regulatory burden and enhance the efficiency and stability of the financial system. Dodd-Frank pays lip service to this objective with the creation of an Orderly Liquidation Authority and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, with the effectiveness of both these new bodies being very much in doubt.
Too Big to Fail: Motives, Countermeasures, and the Dodd-Frank Response
Social Science Research Network, 2012
Government forbearance, support, and bailouts of banks and other financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" (TBTF) are widely recognized as encouraging large companies to take excessive risk, placing smaller ones at a competitive disadvantage and influencing banks in general to grow inefficiently to a "protected" size and complexity. During periods of financial stress, with bailouts under way, government officials have promised "never again." During periods of financial stability and economic growth, they have sanctioned large-bank growth by merger and ignored the ongoing competitive imbalance. Repeated efforts to do away with TBTF practices over the last several decades have been unsuccessful. Congress has typically found the underlying problem to be inadequate regulation and/or supervision that has permitted important financial companies to undertake excessive risk. It has responded by strengthening regulation and supervision. Others have located the underlying problem in inadequate regulators, suggesting the need for modifying the incentives that motivate their behavior. A third explanation is that TBTF practices reflect the government's perception that large financial firms serve a public interest-they constitute a "national resource" to be preserved. In this case, a structural solution would be necessary. Breakups of the largest financial firms would distribute the "public interest" among a larger group than the handful that currently hold a disproportionate concentration of financial resources. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 constitutes the most recent effort to eliminate TBTF practices. Its principal focus is on the extension and augmentation of regulation and supervision, which it envisions as preventing excessive risk taking by large financial companies; Congress has again found the cause for TBTF practices in the inadequacy of regulation and supervision. There is no indication that Congress has given any credence to the contention that regulatory motivations have been at fault. Finally, Dodd-Frank eschews a structural solution, leaving the largest financial companies intact and bank regulatory agencies still with extensive discretion in passing on large bank mergers. As a result, the elimination of TBTF will remain problematic for years to come.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
The recent financial crisis was a powerful reminder that the inherent instability of the monetary-financial system is likely to entail serious consequences for the real economy. In the U.S., the monumental Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 ("Dodd-Frank Act") has provided legislation that aims to institutionalise several aspects a new thinking on financial stability. In addition to the interagency Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC"), the creation of the The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB") marks an important departure from the U.S. regulatory tradition of decentralized agencies whereby the institutional locus of financial oversight depended on the precise nature of the legal structure of and business activities pursued by individual financial intermediaries. In its mandate and institutional structure, the CFPB unifies both "micro-prudential" and "macroprudential" principles of financial regulation to enhance overall financial stability. From an historical perspective, the creation of the CFPB does not change the regulatory landscape to the same extent as did the creation of the Federal Reserve after the Panic of 1907 or the creation of the FDIC after the 1933 Banking Crisis. At the same time, however, the CFPB represents an important historical shift in the policy focus of U.S. financial regulation away from bank stability bank to a broad notion of financial stability that recognises the increased financialisation of households' welfare.
Dodd–Frank’s federal deposit insurance reform
Journal of Banking Regulation, 2017
A seldom discussed part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act (DFA) is how the deposit insurance assessment alteration impacted different types of banks. We provide details of the reform and investigate the effects on the banking industry. The DFA called for an expansion of the assessment base used to determine deposit insurance fees, along with a simultaneous reduction in assessment rates, so as to not raise additional fees paid. This reform did not affect all banks the same as a result of very different business models. The reform was aimed to benefit community banks at the expense of non-community banks. We estimate that community banks in the aggregate benefitted by more than $3.7 billion in deposit insurance fee reductions since the reform's implementation in 2011. While non-community banks initially experienced increased fees, offsetting the benefits to community banks, we find evidence that non-community banks in the aggregate adjusted their funding behavior so that all but the largest banks also enjoyed benefits from the reform during our sample period. Keywords Deposit insurance Á Dodd-Frank Act Á Commercial bank regulation Á FDIC Á Too big to fail banks Á Community banks JEL Classification G21 Á G28
Credit Union Regulations' Mysterious Hold on Thrifts and Community Banks
2021
The continued operation of credit unions in the 2008-2010 regulatory framework remained a source of debate in the financial sector. Competing thrifts argued for fair regulatory treatment while credit unions argued for the relaxation of restrictions on their scale and scope of operation. We provide a fresh perspective by building on central place theory and offering a family of location models for the U.S. credit unions. Our results showed that credit unions operated in areas with a low concentration of retail banks. This finding was evidence that credit unions serve niche markets and they were not a significant source of direct competition for thrifts and community banks. This may signal an increase in credit union formation in a post-pandemic world.