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Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the influential House financial services committee, says Obama’s lastest regulatory crackdown on Wall Street could make it into law in as soon as few months. Frank, who said the president’s flurry of recent financial reforms surprised him, told the Financial Times in Davos, Switzerland, that the administration’s new proposals could very well be included in an existing financial services bill already in the works within his committee. (To watch the full interview with FT‘s Gillian Tett and Frank, click here.)
More from the FT story:
This essentially gives a new systemic regulator the discretionary power to clamp down on banks’ proprietary businesses or force banks to shrink in size—if necessary. Until recently, this aspect of the bill had not garnered much attention, since there has been a wider controversy about the future identity of a systemic regulator.
However, Mr Frank argued that Volcker’s plan could be incorporated within this enhanced definition of a supervisory authority—and said he was sure that a bill would be in place well before the mid-term elections in November, if not signed off by Chris Dodd, his counterpart in the Senate, within weeks. “I think Chris will get a bill out in March.”
Overall Mr Frank said the drive to de-risk banks was to be applauded. “I wish banks had fewer ways to make money than deposits,” he said. He also expressed confidence that the US reforms could form part of a wider regulatory blueprint that would be incorporated elsewhere, including in Europe—dismissing scepticism that Mr Obama’s initiative had upset a measured, internationally co-ordinated response to the future regulation of the world’s banks.
