Bank Lobbyists No Longer Optimistic Re: Dodd-Frank Revamp

The banking industry may have awoken the day after the presidential election with high hopes, which continued right up until just about the present day. But now the question looms as to whether the bloom may be off the regulatory reform rose. The key lever of disappointment, according to CNBC, may lie with the fact that the Dodd-Frank legislation seems to be stalled, at least in terms of being fast tracked, or maybe even tracked at all.

The stall comes because that reform legislation has to wait its turn behind the current health care debate, and after that, tax reform. The odds may be stacked against wholesale Dodd-Frank redone, as the seven-year-old law has increasingly become less likely to see the votes it needs in the Senate to get a strong revamp underway. Banks, of course, have been looking for regulatory rollbacks to help move the needle of profit growth.

Proponents of a rollback have said that they want to see measures against “prop” trading lifted, which would let banks free up capital for, well, trading, and also see less hands on interaction by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies.

The downcast attitude is at odds with current meetings in Washington D.C., where the ABA has been looking at regulatory changes with a more sanguine outlook, CNBC reported.

However there may be some consensus over regulations that impact smaller banks and credit unions, the site reported.