In an op-ed in The Hill newspaper today, American Bankers Association President and CEO Rob Nichols fought back at the notion that “everything’s just fine” in the banking sector and that no regulatory relief is needed.
Although “some on Capitol Hill have attempted to use community banks’ continued resilience…as an excuse to leave the regulatory environment untouched,” Nichols said that ongoing community bank consolidation and sluggish economic growth show that banks could do so much more if regulations were streamlined.
“That’s what bankers are telling policymakers,” Nichols explained. “Without reasonable and rational reform, we will never realize the thousands of businesses that could be started or scaled, the hundreds of thousands of homes that could be built and purchased and the millions of financial dreams that could come true but won’t because they don’t fit into the unnecessarily restrictive boxes our policymakers have contrived.”
