Opinion

Dodd-Frank Shows Teeth on First Birthday

By Roy Smith, Kenneth Langone Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance & Professor of Management Practice
July 4, 2011 -- As Dodd-Frank approaches its first anniversary this month, some things have been done but there is much still to do.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council has now been established and met five times. It has issued policy papers on systemically important non-banks and exchanges, using rules that limit trading. The Federal Reserve has cleared its decks for its role in supervising systemically important banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, well behind schedule, are frantically writing rules to implement the 2,200-page law.

What has not yet been done includes appointing the director of consumer financial protection, a head of the Treasury’s new office of financial research, and filing several other important regulatory positions. The Fed has not yet identified which the “systemically important” non-banks are, what the “enhanced” capital requirements (beyond Basel III) for systemically important banks and non-banks will be, or what limits will be imposed on trading for marketmaking purposes. The controversial new rules on derivatives, due this month, have been put off until the end of the year.

Read full article as published in the Financial News.