49th Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition
Following the recent financial crisis, there were calls to enhance regulatory scrutiny and pursue increased stability in financial markets. Major portions of the Dodd–Frank Act emphasized financial stability and introduced procedures to achieve it through new macroprudential regulation—looking beyond the behavior of individual firms and accounting for systemic risk, knock-on effects, contagion and firm interconnectedness. To address financial stability, Dodd–Frank created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a collaborative body that brings together the expertise of various financial regulators and has collective accountability for identifying risks and responding to emerging threats to financial stability. One of its most important tools is the ability to designate firms as “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs)—firms whose behavior or stress/failure could potentially threaten market stability. Such firms will be regulated more stringently than other financial institutions with respect to capital, liquidity, leverage, debt limits, disclosures and risk management. Financial market utilities, such as payment, clearing and settlement services, may also be designated as systemically important by FSOC.
Efforts to identify and regulate systemically important institutions and market activities are considered by many to be the most important aspect of recent financial regulatory reform. How does the designation process work? How differentiated will regulatory scrutiny be for SIFIs? What restrictions and requirements will be imposed on financial market utilities, such as payment and settlement systems? What effect will new restrictions have on firm and market behavior and competitiveness? What effects will the SIFI designation have on the ease or difficulty of resolving these institutions should they encounter problems?
To address these and related issues, we brought together an impressive group of industry leaders, scholars and regulatory authorities.
Conference Highlights
- Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency
- Edward DeMarco, Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency
- William M. Isaac, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fifth Third Bancorp
- Panel of Industry Experts Addressing Regulatory issues associated with SIFIs
Ben S. Bernanke began a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 1, 2010. Bernanke also serves as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the System's principal monetary policymaking body. He originally took office as Chairman on February 1, 2006, when he also began a 14-year term as a member of the Board. His second term as Chairman ends January 31, 2014, and his term as a Board member ends January 31, 2020. Read more...
Before his appointment as Chairman, Bernanke was Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006.
Thomas J. Curry was sworn in as the 30th Comptroller of the Currency on April 9, 2012.
The Comptroller of the Currency is the administrator of national banks and chief officer of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC supervises more than 2,000 national banks and federal savings associations and about 50 federal branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States. These institutions comprise nearly two-thirds of the assets of the commercial banking system. The Comptroller also is a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and NeighborWorks® America.
On April 1, 2013, Mr. Curry was named Chairman of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) for a two-year term. Comptroller Curry is the 21st FFIEC Chairman, marking the fifth time the OCC has led the Council. Read more...
On August 25, 2009, President Obama designated Edward J. DeMarco the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks effective September 1, 2009. Previously, DeMarco served as FHFA’s Chief Operating Officer and Senior Deputy Director for Housing Mission and Goals since FHFA’s inception in 2008. A career civil servant, DeMarco joined the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), a predecessor agency to FHFA, in October 2006 as its Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Director. Read more...
William M. Isaac is a Senior Managing Director of FTI Consulting and serves as Global Head of FTI’s financial institutions group. The financial institutions practice group provides regulatory counseling and risk management services, strategy consulting, expert testimony and corporate governance consulting for financial institutions, law firms and governments.
Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Isaac founded the Secura Group, a leading financial institutions consulting firm. LECG acquired the Secura Group in 2007 and Isaac remained with the financial services group at LECG through early 2011. Prior to forming Secura, Isaac headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation during the banking crisis of the 1980s, serving under Presidents Carter and Reagan from 1978 through 1985. Isaac also serves as Chairman of Fifth Third Bancorp, one of the nation’s leading banking companies. Read more...
Reception ends at 7:30 p.m.
Reception ends at 7:30 p.m.
