NEWS RELEASE
Nov. 10, 2009
ABA Media Contact: Peter Garuccio    
(202) 663-5452
E-mail: pgarucci@aba.com

ABA STATEMENT ON SEN. DODD'S REGULATORY RESTRUCTURING PROPOSAL

By Edward L. Yingling, president and chief executive officer

            "For more than a year, the American Bankers Association, in congressional testimony and elsewhere, has supported extensive regulatory reform – including the creation of a systemic oversight council, developing a system for resolving systemic institutions and ending too-big-to-fail, closing gaps in the regulation of non-banks, and addressing consumer protection weaknesses.  Sen. Dodd's discussion draft, however, would tear apart the existing regulatory structure only to create a new one that would produce conflicts among regulators, undermine the state-chartered banking system, and impose extensive new regulatory burdens on those banks that had nothing to do with creating the financial crisis.  ABA supports comprehensive reform, but not this reform.

            "Many experts have correctly said that we need to return home again, focusing on more traditional banking that is based on sound practices and effective regulation.  However, Sen. Dodd's proposal would make this traditional banking home increasingly unlivable.

            "While there are key elements of the proposal we support, ABA opposes the creation of a single prudential regulator, which failed miserably in Great Britain and which would inevitably undermine the state-chartered banking system and be detrimental to community banks.  We also oppose: the approach embodied in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which will put banks in the middle of conflicting regulations from two regulators with differing charges; the needless and counterproductive elimination of the thrift charter; and the elimination of federal preemption, which will increase the cost and lessen the availability of credit and other consumer financial products."

# # #

The American Bankers Association brings together banks of all sizes and charters into one association. ABA works to enhance the competitiveness of the nation's banking industry and strengthen America's economy and communities. Its members – the majority of which are banks with less than $125 million in assets – represent over 95 percent of the industry's $13.5 trillion in assets and employ over 2 million men and women.