Turn Of The Wheel

The Dodd-Frank act gave regulators discretion to do more. And, under Donald Trump, to do less

TEN days after he became America’s 45th president in January, Donald Trump vowed to “do a big number on Dodd-Frank”, the elephantine law that recast financial regulation after the crisis of 2007-08. Soon after, he asked his treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, to measure all America’s rules (not just Dodd-Frank) against seven broad principles, including the prevention of bail-outs by the taxpayer and making regulation more efficient.

On June 12th Mr Mnuchin gave the first part of his answer, in a 147-page report on banks. Later instalments will cover capital markets, insurance and asset management, and non-bank institutions and financial technology. Banks of all sizes will be cheered by its proposals to ease regulation, make “stress tests” of their resilience less onerous and tame the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a watchdog born of the Dodd-Frank act. To allay the confusion caused by America’s many regulators, Mr Mnuchin wants to give coordinating power to the Financial Stability Oversight Council, comprising the heads ofall the agencies and chaired by himself.

The report’s underlying thesis—shared by Mr Trump and many bankers—is that excessive regulation has held back lending, which has in turn constrained economic growth. Since the crisis, the report notes, lending has risen by 25%, far less than in other recent recoveries, and GDP growth has been sluggish.