Splits in Banking Industry Beginning to Surface

In a very encouraging sign for those of us trying to reform banking law, there are growing signs of splits in the banking industry.

In the letters to the editor printed last week in the NY Times and American Banker, two leaders in the banking industry both come out strongly in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act, the very important and very strong centerpiece of the Obama administration's financial regulatory reform proposals. The authors of the letters were Gerard P. Cuddy, Chair and CEO of Philadelphia's Beneficial Bank, and Jack Stack, Chair and CEO of Ceska Sporitelna, Czech Republic, and formerly a top executive for 22 years for Chemical Bank and Chase Bank.

These letters are significant but not surprising to me, as I think they represent the views of a lot of bankers around the country who do not work for Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America. In my book tour and other speaking assignments I have done over the last six months, I have run across several community bankers, Savings and Loan and Credit Union execs who agreed with me very strongly that too big to fail is too big to exist, and that tougher banking regulations on the big banks were desperately needed.

I hope and believe there will be more business leaders coming out in the next few weeks breaking with the big banking conglomerates on Wall St., because we need to start regulating these behemoths far more aggressively than we do now. Anything we can do to lessen their market power would be a major boon not only to consumers but to our entire economy.

Letters to the editor written by Gerard P. Cuddy, President and Chief Executive of Beneficial Bank and Jack Stack, former chairman and CEO of Ceska Sporitelna, the largest bank in the Czech Republic and a 30 year veteran of the banking industry are posted here.