The Glade 4.0

Here are some key parts of the draft legislation hashed out between House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and the Treasury Department.

1) It would create a financial services oversight council, chaired by the Treasury Secretary, which would consist of Federal Reserve Chairman, Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman, and heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and others. The council would:

a. advise Congress on banking regulation

b. identify companies and activities that should be subject to more supervision.

c. Issue formal recommendations that a council member adopt for firms it regulates.

d. Resolve a dispute between regulators.

e. Subject a financial activity or practice to tougher rules and standards if the activity could threaten companies or markets.

2) The Fed would be able to direct any large financial holding company to shrink by selling or transferring assets or stopping certain activities if it determines there could be a “threat to the safety and soundness of such company or to the financial stability of the United States.”

3) The Fed would be able to set concentration limits for large financial holding companies, prohibiting these firms from having credit exposure to buy unaffiliated company that exceeds 25% of the holding company’s capital stock and surplus or a lower amount if the Fed determines it to be prudent.

4) The Fed could require any large holding company it determines to be critically undercapitalized to enter bankruptcy.

5) The FDIC can, with the approval of the Fed and Treasury Department, make a loan or offer guarantees to a solvent company “predominantly engaged in activities that are financial in nature” if this is necessary to “prevent financial instability during times of severe economic distress.”

6) Any losses incurred by the FDIC would be paid by borrowed funds from Treasury, and later recouped by assessments on any financial company with more than $10 billion of assets.

7) It would abolish the Office of Thrift Supervision, and create a division of thrift supervision within the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

8) It would put the Fed chairman or a Fed governor on the FDIC’s five-member board, replacing the extinguished OTS director.

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