Basel III regulatory capital rules delayed
Memphis Business Journal by Cole Epley, Staff writer
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012, 1:30pm CST
Representatives from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have announced they “do not expect that any of the proposed (Basel III) rules would become effective on Jan. 1, 2013,” according to an official statement from the OCC.
The comments period for the proposed regulatory provisions ended on Oct. 22 and its delay was immediately met with praise from professionals like David Stevens, president of the national Mortgage Bankers Association.
“This is a positive development and hopefully signals that the regulators are rethinking their problematic Basel III rule and are going back to the drawing board for a new proposed rule,” Stevens said in a release. “The rules, as proposed this summer, would have had serious negative repercussions across the lending landscape, with the impact felt most acutely by residential, commercial and multifamily real estate borrowers, investors and lenders in the form of tighter credit and higher costs.”
Local industry professionals echoed Stevens’ sentiment in a story that ran in the Nov. 9-15 MBJ print edition. The proposed overhaul to capital requirements for certain types of loans like mortgages would require banks to hold as much as three times more capital than is presently required.
Steve Eisen, a shareholder in the Nashville office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, said in an interview the Federal Reserve had received “thousands and thousands of comments” by the time the comments period ended.
“All of them (were) pretty negative, and there were also higher-ups in the OCC and FDIC complaining about Basel III,” Eisen said, adding that a Basel III webinar hosted by the OCC a few months ago stirred some serious emotion among participants. “A lot of angry bankers got on the phone and were actually using a lot of four-letter words directed at the OCC, even though it wasn’t their rule.”
Memphis Business Journal by Cole Epley, Staff writer
Date: Monday, November 12, 2012, 1:30pm CST
Representatives from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have announced they “do not expect that any of the proposed (Basel III) rules would become effective on Jan. 1, 2013,” according to an official statement from the OCC.
The comments period for the proposed regulatory provisions ended on Oct. 22 and its delay was immediately met with praise from professionals like David Stevens, president of the national Mortgage Bankers Association.
“This is a positive development and hopefully signals that the regulators are rethinking their problematic Basel III rule and are going back to the drawing board for a new proposed rule,” Stevens said in a release. “The rules, as proposed this summer, would have had serious negative repercussions across the lending landscape, with the impact felt most acutely by residential, commercial and multifamily real estate borrowers, investors and lenders in the form of tighter credit and higher costs.”
Local industry professionals echoed Stevens’ sentiment in a story that ran in the Nov. 9-15 MBJ print edition. The proposed overhaul to capital requirements for certain types of loans like mortgages would require banks to hold as much as three times more capital than is presently required.
Steve Eisen, a shareholder in the Nashville office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, said in an interview the Federal Reserve had received “thousands and thousands of comments” by the time the comments period ended.
“All of them (were) pretty negative, and there were also higher-ups in the OCC and FDIC complaining about Basel III,” Eisen said, adding that a Basel III webinar hosted by the OCC a few months ago stirred some serious emotion among participants. “A lot of angry bankers got on the phone and were actually using a lot of four-letter words directed at the OCC, even though it wasn’t their rule.”