CEI Supports HR 3312’s Efforts to Restore Main Street Banks

Competitive Enterprise Institute Policy Analyst Daniel Press offered the following statement on the proposed H.R. 3312, the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act:

“Subjecting a midsize bank in America’s heartland to the same regulation as a trillion-dollar bank on Wall Street does nothing to make our financial system safer and drowns regional banks in more and more paperwork. H.R. 3312, the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act, makes a substantial first step in allowing regional banks across the country to get back to doing what they do best — financing growing businesses, helping to create jobs, and bringing about a robust, prosperous economy.

“The Dodd-Frank Act’s mandated designation of regional banks as ‘too big to fail’ is a prime example of how this so-called Wall-Street reform law devastates financial institutions on Main Street. Currently, banks with at least $50 billion in assets are automatically considered Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), even if their failure poses miniscule risk to the financial system.

“Instead of an arbitrary $50 billion asset threshold, if H.R. 3312 succeeds, regulators will be required to assess a bank’s entire risk profile to determine whether midsize banks pose the same threat to the financial system as complex, trillion-dollar institutions. Ultimately, no bank – whether on Wall Street or Main Street — should be deemed ‘too big to fail’ and subject to special treatment from the government – whether that treatment is preferential or punitive.”

See more from Daniel Press on this topic in his op-ed here.