A number of regional banks will now face less paperwork and lighter supervision from federal regulators, who announced Friday how they would implement the banking regulatory relief bill signed by President Trump in May.
Banks with between $50 billion and $100 billion, such the Birmingham-headquartered Compass Bank and Dallas’ Comerica, will no longer have to undergo stress tests, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency jointly announced.
The banks also won’t have to meet some of the post-crisis regulations regarding minimum levels of capital and liquidity.
The banking agencies also said that they are set to implement parts of the law that apply to smaller community banks, such as the exemption from the Volcker Rule that prohibits banks from speculating with deposits that are insured by the government.
Friday’s announcement is just the first step in the implementation of the law, which represented the biggest revision to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law since President Obama enacted it.
Still to come is the most controversial part — writing the rules that apply to banks with up to $250 billion in assets. The law also called for those banks to get regulatory relief, but allowed the Fed to subject individual banks to tighter scrutiny if officials thought it was needed. Banks in that category include Atlanta’s SunTrust, Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Bank, and others.
