AFP, Washington :
President Donald Trump’s promised rollback of banking regulation is well underway, with vacancies at the top of key agencies and new legislation in the works.
Since the start of his presidency, Trump has decried the financial rules and regulations put in place to combat the excesses that led to the financial crisis through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation of 2010.
“We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses that can’t borrow money,” he said in February.
And Trump will have an unprecedented opportunity in coming months to reshape the agencies in charge of regulation, as he fills key positions.
At the Federal Reserve, which has a central role in regulating banks, he will have the opportunity to fill at least three of the seven seats on the central bank’s board.
He recently named a successor for Fed chair Janet Yellen, tapping former investment banker and current Fed Governor Jerome Powell.
In the latest critical development, Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) who had long been in the banking industry’s crosshairs, announced last week he would step down by the end of the month, several months early.
The Senate also last week confirmed Joseph Otting, a banking executive and associate of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, with decades at major commercial lenders, as the new head of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a principal banking regulator.
