Keating Calls for Dodd-Frank, CFPB Reforms

The Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB must be reformed to reduce the regulatory burden on community banks, ABA President and CEO Frank Keating said Friday in a Boston Business Journal column. Keating emphasized that the volume of regulations has reached the breaking point for smaller banks with fewer resources.

Until the dawn arrives and the skies clear there will be a hesitancy to make loans, even though banks want to, because they’re fearful of what regulators might decide to do after the fact.

Within the institution there is disquiet because of not only taxes, which …are going up, but the CFPB is ... worrisome and ponderable because nobody can say no to it. The one thing bankers don't want is to be whipsawed.

Smaller institutions that don’t have any compliance people [say] … ‘Capital is healthy. We want to lend, but regulators are telling us to be much more careful in how we lend. ... We can't hire that loan officer, we have to hire a compliance person, and [that] person doesn’t bring any business in the door.’