Question

What are the remaining distinctions between banks, savings associations and credit unions? Will these distinctions be maintained after Dodd-Frank?

Answer 1

The financial regulatory system has been described as fragmented, with multiple overlapping regulators and a dual state-federal regulatory system. The system evolved piecemeal, punctuated by major changes in response to various historical financial crises. The most recent financial crisis also resulted in changes to the regulatory system through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act; P.L. 111-203) and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA; P.L. 110-289). To address the fragmented nature of the system, the Dodd-Frank Act created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a council of regulators and experts chaired by the Treasury Secretary.

Consumer protection regulator—Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by the Dodd-Frank Act.

Other entities that play a role in financial regulation are interagency bodies, state regulators, and international regulatory fora. Notably, federal regulators generally play a secondary role in insurance markets.

Regulators regulate financial institutions, markets, and products using licensing, registration, rulemaking, supervisory, enforcement, and resolution powers. In practice, regulatory jurisdiction is typically based on charter type, not function. In other words, how and by whom a firm is regulated depends more on the firm’s legal status than the types of activities it is conducting. This means that a similar activity being conducted by two different types of firms can be regulated differently by different regulators. Financial firms may be subject to more than one regulator because they may engage in multiple financial activities. For example, a firm may be overseen by an institution regulator and by an activity regulator when it engages in a regulated activity and by a market regulator when it participates in a regulated market.