Originally from the American Banker, July 20,2015
As we reflect on the Dodd-Frank Act in anticipation of its fifth anniversary, it’s important to assess the law’s impact on community and regional banks thus far and what can be done to reduce the unnecessary burdens in the future. Rather than focusing simply on more intense regulation for the 10 or 12 largest banks that were the primary cause of the financial crisis, the law has had wide-sweeping consequences for all banks, regardless of size.
Community banks, which I’ll define as banks below $10 billion in assets, weren’t packaging inferior securities and selling them to unsuspecting investors. But as the former chairman and chief executive of a community bank based outside of Philadelphia, I can attest that small banks have been swept into the regulatory overkill created by Dodd-Frank. As a result, they have been forced to hire large numbers of additional staff to fulfill the law’s requirements, although those rules have little to do with their safety and soundness.