The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has been leading the charge on revamping the Community Reinvestment Act, but a big unknown is whether the other two regulators charged with carrying out the law are committed to moving ahead as swiftly on a reform plan.
During earnings calls, bankers welcomed the latest efforts by regulators to modify capital rules. JPMorgan Chase CFO Marianne Lake, meanwhile, called on policymakers to focus on overhauling the G-SIB surcharge.
Acting director wants agency run by a bipartisan body, not a lone director; Fed and OCC push for relaxing the supplementary leverage ratio at the biggest banks.
The agencies proposed changes to the way they apply a capital backstop to the largest systemically important firms, replacing a static leverage ratio with a more dynamic ratio that takes each bank’s risk profile into account.
The comptroller said he is looking to capitalize on the industry's strong profits and high capital reserves to reduce costs and lower exam fees next year.
In his last major speech as the agency’s No. 2, Thomas Hoenig said it would be a “serious policy mistake” to relax measures such as the supplementary leverage ratio, but he was more open to regulatory relief in other areas.
There's been a legislative bottleneck since the the crisis-era law went into effect, but Congress has moved forward on a handful of significant changes.
