Obama To Detail Broad Reform Of Financial Regulation
WASHINGTON: President Obama on Wednesday will finally lift the curtain on his long-anticipated plan to reorder how banks and other firms are regulated in the hope of preventing another financial collapse.Those plans will include getting rid of the Office of Thrift Supervision, merging it with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and renaming that regulator the “National Bank Supervisor,” a senior administration official said Tuesday evening. The OTS has been on the hot seat for months for its role as the overseer in charge of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) and failed lenders IndyMac and Washington Mutual. The comptroller’s office is a Treasury Department bureau that regulates national banks.The administration will also call for the creation of a council of regulators to work alongside the Federal Reserve to monitor risk in the financial system, the official said. The Treasury secretary would chair the council.In addition, Obama will propose the establishment of a new watchdog agency that would aim to protect consumers from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. The new consumer agency would take on some powers that currently reside with other regulators like the Fed. It will also have the power to make rules and enact them, as well as the ability to inspect “banking and nonbanking” firms, the official said.Obama is expected to spell out the full plan on Wednesday.Most of the proposals must first be approved by Congress, which has its own ideas about reforming the financial regulatory structure. Lawmakers have begun hearings on the issue, but final legislative passage could be a lengthy process, veteran Hill watchers say.
Source:CNN
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