Banking Regulators Describe Interactions with Global Regulatory Bodies

At a House Financial Services Committee hearing titled "Importing Global Governance: Examining the Dangers of Ceding Authority Over American Financial Regulation," witnesses from the principal banking agencies testified on the interactions between the regulators and global regulatory bodies.

In a Memorandum, majority staff raised concerns about "the extent to which officials and staff from other countries are influencing and shaping recommendations that find their way into U.S. regulation and supervision." Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) highlighted the lack of transparency and accountability in the interactions between U.S. federal regulators and international entities, including the Bank for International Settlements, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Network for Greening the Financial System. He cited the Basel III Endgame proposal as "[t]he most glaring example of Federal banking agencies taking their cues from global governance bodies," arguing that the proposal would "strengthen the competitiveness of foreign financial institutions at the expense of our own."

Representatives of the Federal Reserve Board (Michael Gibson, Director of Supervision and Regulation), the FDIC (Ryan Billingsley, Deputy Director of Capital Markets and Accounting Policy) and the OCC (Grovetta N. Gardineer, Senior Deputy Comptroller for Bank Supervision Policy) described and defended the interactions between the various agencies and the international regulatory bodies.