The U.S. House has approved a sweeping overhaul of bank regulations, sending to President Donald Trump a bill that will give him a chance to make good on his vow to “do a big number” on the Dodd-Frank Act. The new legislation will repeal several provisions of Dodd-Frank, adopted in 2010 to curb excesses and fix problems in the banking industry that many say led to the financial crisis of 2008.
Lawmakers voted 258-to-159 Tuesday to advance a measure that is the product of years of financial-industry lobbying to soften post-crisis rules and sensitive negotiations on Capitol Hill to attract bipartisan support needed to get it through the narrowly-divided Senate. Trump said yesterday that he would sign the bill virtually guaranteeing it will become law.
The bill will raise the threshold for potential increased regulatory oversight of certain banks from assets of $50 billion to $250 billion. It also exempts smaller community banks from several Dodd-Frank provisions; exempts some loan originators, including small lenders, from certain disclosure requirements under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act; eases some stress-test rules for banks; and simplifies and eases some of the leverage-ratio rules that requires banks to hold a certain amount of capital based on their total assets.