Category: Too Big to Fail (TBTF)

  • ISDA Promotes a Race to the Bottom

    Posted by

    Stephen Lubben

    Frustrated that Congress did not decide to collapse the CFTC and SEC as part of Dodd-Frank, and facing the reality that the SEC is still working on its rules under Title VII of Dodd-Frank, ISDA, the swaps industry trade group, is out with a white paper that urges the adoption of a "safe harbor."

    This is not the infamous bankruptcy safe harbors, but rather a rule that would be adopted by both regulators. The basic idea is that compliance with one regulator's rule is "good enough." That is, swaps traders could choose which regulator they want.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  • The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

    Posted by

    Stephen Lubben

    Or EGRRCPA, for short. That is the official name of S. 2155, a bill which seems to be tearing Senate Democrats apart. Republicans are uniformly in favor of the bill, which Bloomberg describes as "another faulty bank-reform bill." Some Democrats see it as needed regulatory relief for small banks, while others, including the one who used to blog here, see S. 2155 as a rollback of keys parts of Dodd-Frank for big banks that remain too big to fail.

    It is both. Indeed, if the bill were stripped of its title IV, I think most people could live with it. But title IV is a doozy.  

    Most notably, it raises the threshold for additional regulation under Dodd-Frank from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion. Banks with more than $50 billion in assets are not community banks.

    The banks in the zone of deregulation include State Street, SunTrust, Fifth Third, Citizens, and other banks of this ilk. In short, with the possible exception of State Street, this is not a deregulatory gift to "Wall Street," but rather to the next rung of banks, all of which experienced extreme troubles in 2008-2009, and all of which participated in TARP.

    My prime concern – given my area of study – is that these banks will no longer be required to prepare "living wills." That is, they will not have to work with regulators on resolution plans.

    How then do we expect to use Dodd-Frank's orderly liquidation authority if they fail? It would be impossible without advanced planning. Same for the misguided attempts at "chapter 14." I have real doubts about the wisdom of "bankruptcy for banks," but if it is ever to work, it will require lots of advanced planning (and luck).

    And we can't use the normal FDIC approach of finding another, bigger bank to take them over, because that would simply create another colossus, like Wells Fargo. Certainly we don't want that.

    Maybe a bailout then? Is that the "new" plan?

  • How S.2155 (the Bank Lobbyist Act) Facilitates Discriminatory Lending

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    If you think it's ridiculous that the CDC can't gather data on gun violence, consider the financial regulatory world's equivalent:  S.2155, formally known as the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, but better (and properly) known as the Bank Lobbyist Act.  S.2155 is going to facilitate discriminatory lending. Let me say that again.  S.2155 is legislation that will facilitate discriminatory lending. This bill functionally exempts 85% of US banks and credit unions from fair lending laws in the mortgage market.  Support for this bill should be a real mark of shame for its sponsors. 

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  • Bankruptcy’s Lorelei: The Dangerous Allure of Financial Institution Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    I have a new (short!) paper out, Bankruptcy's Lorelei:  The Dangerous Allure of Financial Institution Bankruptcy. The paper, which builds off of some Congressional testimony from 2015, makes the case that proposals for resolving large, systemically important financial institutions in bankruptcy are wrongheaded and ultimately dangerous. At best they will undermine the legitimacy of the bankruptcy process, and at worst they will result in crash-and-burn bankruptcies that exacerbate financial crises, rather than containing them.  The abstract is below.

    The idea of a bankruptcy procedure for large, systemically important financial institutions exercises an irresistible draw for some policymakers and academics. Financial institution bankruptcy promises to be a transparent, law- based process in which resolution of failed financial institutions is navigated in the courts. Financial institutions bankruptcy presents itself as the antithesis of an arbitrary and discretionary bailout regime. It promises to eliminate the moral hazard of too-big-to-fail by ensuring that creditors will incur losses, rather than being bailed out. Financial institutions bankruptcy holds out the possibility of market discipline instead of an extensive bureaucratic regulatory system.

    This Essay argues that financial institution bankruptcy is a dangerous siren song that lures with false promises. Instead of instilling market discipline and avoiding the favoritism of bailouts, financial institution bankruptcy is likely to simply result in bailouts in bankruptcy garb. It would encourage bank deregulation without the elimination of moral hazard that produces financial crises. A successful bankruptcy is not possible for a large financial institution absent massive financing for operations while in bankruptcy, and that financing can only reliably be obtained on short notice and in distressed credit markets from one source: the United States government. Government financing of a bankruptcy will inevitably come with strings attached, including favorable treatment for certain creditor groups, resulting in bankruptcies that resemble those of Chrysler and General Motors, which are much decried by proponents of financial institution bankruptcy as having been disguised bailouts.

    The central flaw with the idea of financial institutions bankruptcy is that it fails to address the political nature of systemic risk. What makes a financial crisis systemically important is whether its social costs are politically acceptable. When they are not, bailouts will occur in some form; crisis containment inevitably trumps rule of law. Resolution of systemic risk is a political question, and its weight will warp the judicial process. Financial institutions bankruptcy will merely produce bailouts in the guise of bankruptcy while undermining judicial legitimacy and the rule of law.

  • Visa’s Maginot Line: Chip Cards and the Equifax Breach

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    The media attention on the Equifax breach has been primarily on consumer harm.  There's real consumer harm, but it's generally not direct pecuniary harm.  Instead, the direct pecuniary harm from the breach will be borne by banks and merchants, and it's going to expose the move to Chip (EMV) cards in the United States without an accompanying move to PIN (as in Chip-and-PIN) to be an incredibly costly blunder by US banks.  Basically, Visa, Mastercard, and Amex have built the commercial equivalent of the Maginot Line. A great line of defense against a frontal assault, and totally worthless against a flanking assault, which is what the Equifax breach will produce.  

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  • Equifax: A Call for Public Utility Regulation of Consumer Reporting Agencies

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    This post diagnoses what went wrong with Equifax and proposes a solution:  a public utility regulation regime for consumer reporting agencies in which the CRAs would be restricted in their ability to pay dividends and executive compensation unless they meet certain performance metrics in terms of reporting accuracy, dispute resolution, and data security.  Here goes: 

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  • Trump’s Bank Regulators: More Swamp Creatures

    Posted by

    Alan White

    Following his appointment of Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, the President has nominated Joseph Otting, former CEO of OneWest Bank, to be the chief federal bank regulator as head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC is theMnuchinprotest bank cop for the nation's largest banks. The OCC determines whether banks are taking too many risks with depositor and taxpayer money, and is charged with preventing failures of banks that are too big too fail, in other words, with preventing the next financial crisis.

    OneWest Bank was founded by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin in 2009  primarily to acquire, and foreclose, thousands of troubled mortgage loans made by the failed subprime lender IndyMac. Otting served as CEO of OneWest from 2010 until 2015. The President's two leading bank regulators made considerable fortunes by running this very unusual bank, relying on some big-time government funding.

    IndyMac had specialized in "nonprime" mortgages, including no-doc interest-only loans and other toxic products, that failed massively in the foreclosure crisis. IndyMac was the first large federally-regulated bank to fail and be bailed out by the FDIC in 2008.

    The California Reinvestment Coalition determined from several Freedom of Information Act requests that the FDIC will pay OneWest $2.4 billion for foreclosure losses on the IndyMac loans. Housing counselors in California identified OneWest as one of the most ruthless and difficult banks to deal with in trying to negotiate foreclosure alternatives on behalf of homeowners. In 2011 OneWest signed a consent decree with the federal banking agencies, neither admitting nor denying the agency's findings that OneWest had routinely falsified court documents in foreclosure cases, the practice known as robosigning. In his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Otting insisted that the regulators' findings of OneWest misconduct were a "false narrative." False or not, OneWest foreclosures, and its deal with the FDIC, do seem to have proven very profitable. Bloomberg estimates that Mnuchin made $200 million from the sale of OneWest in 2015, and Otting earned about $25 million in compensation and severance in his final year at OneWest.

    OneWest was acquired by CIT group, one of the few banks that did not repay the taxpayers for their 2008 TARP bailout–the bank filed bankruptcy in 2009, stiffing the taxpayers for $2.3 billion. The bankruptcy reorganization and the shedding of CIT's debt allowed CIT to return to profitability and eventually fund its purchase of OneWest from Mnuchin and his partners.

    photo credit Walt Mancin Pasadena Star-News

  • CFPB Arbitration Rulemaking–and Potential FSOC Veto

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    Today the CFPB finalized the most important rulemaking it has undertaken to date.  This rulemaking substantially restricts consumer financial service providers' ability to prevent consumer class actions by forcing consumers into individual arbitrations. I believe this is by far the most important rulemaking undertaken by the CFPB because it affects practices across the consumer finance space (other than mortgages, where arbitration clauses are already prohibited by statute). 

    Let's be clear–the issue has never really been about arbitration vs. judicial adjudication.  It's always been about whether consumers could bring class actions.  I don't want to rehash the merits of that here other than to say that the prevention of class actions is effectively a license for businesses with sticky consumer relationships to steal small amounts from a large number of people.   For example, am I really going to change my banking relationship (and its direct deposit and automatic bill payment arrangements and convenient branch) over an illegal $15 overcharge?  Rationally, no, I'll lump it, not least because I have no easy way of determining if another bank will do the same thing to me. In a world of profit-maximizing firms, we know what will happen next:  I'll get hit with overcharges right up to my tolerance limit.  Given that consumer finance is largely a business of lots of relatively small dollar transactions, it is tailor made for this problem. Class actions are imperfect procedurally, but they at least reduce the incentive for firms to treat their customers unfairly.  

    The financial services industry seems to be circling the wagons for a last ditch defense of arbitration. There appear to be three prongs to the defense strategy.  First, there will be intense lobbying to get Congress to overturn the rulemaking under the Congressional Review Act.  There's a limited window in which that can happen, however, and it will be an uncomfortable vote for members of Congress, particularly with the 2018 election looming.  This one will be an albatross for them.  Second, there's an effort afoot to have the Financial Stability Oversight Council veto the rulemaking.  And finally, if the rule isn't quashed by Congress or the FSOC, there will assuredly be a litigation challenge to the rulemaking. 

    I want to focus on the FSOC veto strategy, which has just popped up in the news.  

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  • Some Further Thoughts on the “CHOICE Act”

    Posted by

    Stephen Lubben

    Over at Dealb%k.

  • The Choice Act and Bailouts

    Posted by

    Stephen Lubben

    Over at Dealb%k.