Pros And Cons Of The Dodd-Franck Act

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, was created as a tool of financial reform in the legislative package that was authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act, but the law specifically includes terms that prohibit setting interest rate limits, which is contrary to the 36-percent limit that the CFPB is currently trying to mandate as a universal limit on short-term rates. The specifics of the Dodd-Frank Act, according to the www.dodd-frank-act.us, state that the legislation grants, "NO AUTHORITY TO IMPOSE USURY LIMIT" unless such a limit is first passed through due legal processes.

The general objective of this policy paper is to deeply understand the latest and most influential financial reforms and the current financial environment in U.S through relatively comprehensive analysis with regard to the Dodd-Frank Act. In doing so, I move forward to provide some suggestions on improving the relevant legislature.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a mammoth part of financial reform legislation passed by the Obama presidential term in 2010 as a reaction to the financial crisis of 2008. The act's many provisions, implied out over thousands of pages, are scheduled to be taken over a point of several years and are intended to decrease various risks in the U.S. fiscal system. The act established a number of new government agencies tasked with supervision over various components of the act. There are so many provisions, such as financial stability, orderly liquidation authority, transfer of power to comptrollers, FDIC and Fed, Hedge funds, insurance, pay it back Act, and Etc, which contribute to better department and regulations.

In 2008, when the financial crisis occurred, millions of Americans were left without jobs and trillions of dollars of wealth was lost wealth. To make sure the Great Recession would not happen again, President Barrack Obama put into effect the Dodd- Frank Act. With the help of this law, banks will not be able to take irresponsible risks that had negative effects on the American people. Furthermore, with the Volcker Rule embedded into the act, it will ensure that banks are no longer allowed to own, invest, or sponsor hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading operations for their own profit, unrelated to serving their

Before the advent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 1933 and the general conception of government safety nets, the United States banking industry was quite different than it is today. Depositors assumed substantial default risk and even the slightest changes in consumer confidence could result in complete turmoil within the banking world. In addition, bank managers had almost complete discretion over operations. However, today the financial system is among the most heavily government- regulated sectors of the U.S. economy. This drastic change in public policy resulted directly from the industry’s numerous pre-regulatory failures and major disruptions that produced severe economic and social

Congress granted sweeping powers to the CFPB that critics suggest exceed what legislators intended when they passed the Dodd-Frank Act. The bureau has investigated discrimination in auto lending, targeted credit unions, implemented rules for debit cards and created a controversial consumer complaint hotline. A recent CFPB proposal would allow consumers to rate financial companies on a scale of 1 to 5 in surveys without any guidelines for the ratings.

Dodd-Frank forced banks to increase reserves, tie up more of their assets in cash and government securities, and subjected banks to increased regulations.3 As part of the Dodd-Frank act, the Volcker rule was intended to stop banks from engaging in speculative investments with money deposited by customers. Dodd-Frank was rolled out in 2010 but the Volcker Rule was delayed by government red tape until 2015. In addition, by 2013 only about forty percent of Dodd-Frank’s rules had been fully

By signing the Volcker Rule into law on July 21, 2010, I should declare in regard to this reform package that President Barack Obama has, effectively, released a complex, ambiguous document. In addition, it represents a package of 963 pages long with 2,826 footnotes and 1,347 questions. In effect, on December 10, 2013, five federal agencies have technically approved the Volcker Rule. Moreover, these agencies include the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OOC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC. Furthermore, the Volcker Rule has been strongly hindering the banking industry in regard to the risk-taking

The reality of systemic risk made the task of regulating the financial system increasingly complicated, as the crises aren’t contained in one country or market. The extreme inter-dependence between the different agents is the main reason why we need regulation today, as some misconducts can cause a domino effect, affecting markets globally. The structure of the banking system in itself explains this process. In the finance industry, banks borrow money from other banks. If one bank fails, the one who lent the funds in the first place might also follow the same path, creating panic in the markets. The government’s first prerogative is to protect its citizens from these

(Video 2)Today regulatory regime has changed and evolved from its historical roots. Taking a look at these historical roots one can see that every since the 60’s/70’s Congress has been delegating a majority of is legislative authority through the federal agency. Which is shown when vague or even bord laws enable Congress to get credit for addressing problems but then leave a variety of important details to other agencies to deal with. This sometimes can lead to an outcome where the mistakes and risk rest on the shoulder of those agencies, the economy, and American job creator. Allowing Congress to escape any accountability. Finally, in 1994 there was an attempt to address this problem with the congregational review act. This act attempted

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Congress recognized the need to regulate nonbank institutions. Many of the financially distressed institutions were not regulated by the same standards bank holdings were. As a result The Financial Stability Oversight Committee was created under Title I of the Dobb-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The committee was signed into law by Barack Obama on July 21, 2010 and serves three primary purposes. One is to authorize and determine nonbank financial institutions that if under material financial distress or failure, can threaten the financial stability of the United States. The designated institutions are referred to as systematically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and are subject to the regulation and supervision of the Federal Reserve System (Board of Governors). Another purpose of the committee is to promote market discipline and eliminate the expectation of companies stakeholder’s relying on the U.S. government bailout as safeguard from failure or loss. Last but not least the committee is also expected to recommend standards and safeguards for U.S. and global financial systems. In the executive summary of the 2014/15 annual reports, the committee continues focusing on three areas of financial risk: cyber security, foreign markets and the housing finance reform.

The Financial Services Act of 2012 in the UK came into force in 2013 on 1st April. This Act has the government reforms on the financial regulatory structure in the UK. The Act gives the new guidelines on the management of the banking sector and other supervisory roles in the financial services sector. This Act bestowed the oversight role to the Bank of England which is therefore expected to be responsible for the occurrences in the financial system and how the financial institutions manage their balance-sheet risks. This Act also stipulates that three more bodies are to be formed to assist in managing this sector. These bodies include the Financial Policy Committee (FPC), Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This Act affects significantly the two previous Acts which have been running the sector. These are the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 and the Bank of England Act of 1998. In this paper, the Act is clearly analyzed and mostly the effects it has on the Financial Regulatory Regime in the UK (Noked 2013). The economy of the UK has been following a laissez-faire system since 1979 (Allan and Stuart 2011)

Economists, bankers, congressmen, and part of the industry have been thinking that it is the time to make some adjustments. Despite that fact, some of those people believe that big banks, without any break up or reform, are more stable and safer than smaller and less complex banks. Moreover, those defenders have stated that the regulatory reforms

The regulatory system has enabled banks to continue with their unique and central role in America's financial markets by carrying out deposit-taking, lending, and other activities. The importance of banks in the U.S. financial system has resulted in the fact that regulation and supervision by the government extends to many banking aspects. While the current banking laws and supervision has been developed by several stakeholders, the regulatory system has mainly responsible to various needs and serves as a critical part in setting up the standards and guidelines with which banking services are provided (Spong, 2000).

In this section, we will describe the Basel Committee’s approach to financial regulation. The approach is described trough an exposition and analysis of the three Basel frameworks. We are going to explain all three of them, as the preparation of new regulation is build on top of the existing ones. It will therefore also be interesting to see in which direction the Basel Committee has changed the regulation