First published: Prospectmagazine.co.uk, 13/02/2017
Anything more than a tweak to Dodd-Frank would be risky
Around nine years ago, the US investment bank Bear Stearns was in trouble, finding increasing reluctance on the part of markets to provide the liquidity it needed to continue operations. In March 2008 the Federal Reserve intervened heavily to give the bank a lifeline. Two months later, the bank was no more, sold for a song to JP Morgan Chase. With the Lehman crisis four months away, the rest, as they say, is history.
Yet 10 days ago, President Donald Trump issued an executive order which instructs his yet-to-be-confirmed Treasury Secretary and US financial sector regulators to report in June about whether and how to undo the significant parts of that history that have to do with banking regulation. Trump’s executive order doesn’t refer to the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by name but this is what is in the Trump Administration’s cross-hairs. Trying to unpick it is the finance sector equivalent of undoing Obamacare….Read more:
