ARLINGTON, Va.–NAFCU has sent a letter to regulators urging them to interpret the Volcker rule “in the way Congress intended,” which is not to "afford the largest and most complex banks relief from critically important safety and soundness regulations."
NAFCU sane it sent the letter to the agencies following a Yahoo! Finance article that suggested language in the regulatory relief bill S. 2155 addressing this rule could lead to interpretations outside of Congress' intent.
Among the points raised in the letter by NAFCU’s EVP of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt:
- “The Agencies should recognize that [the legislation] was never meant to afford the largest and most complex banks relief from critically important safety and soundness regulations.”
- “[S. 2155] does not give rise to any possible inference that Congress intended to […] extend Volcker Rule relief to large banks, as some have suggested.”
- “The intended meaning of [S .2155] is not altered by the inclusion of double negatives, as some have claimed, and there is no reasonable interpretation of the statute, its context, or any of the supporting evidence that can justify flipping the word ‘and’ […] to ‘to.’”
- “While creative legal interpretations devised by the largest banks may serve to illustrate the need for more careful legislative drafting, they should not entice the Agencies to disregard Congressional intent.”
- “The infamy of individual traders like the ‘London Whale’ demonstrates the destabilizing effect of proprietary trading and the risk of substantial loss when such activity is not closely supervised.”