The Dodd-Frank Boogeyman and Small Business Lending

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July 16, 2013

CFPBLogoBy Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

Inc’s Kimberly Weisul has penned an article about the not so distant future elephant in the room – the impact of Dodd-Frank on small business lending.

The problem is The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does business differently than current bank regulators.

Kimberly quotes Zion’s David Hemingway in the next three paragraphs;

When the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency suspects that a bank is in violation of regulations, Hemingway says, it sends the bank a so-called MRA, or Matters Requiring Attention, explaining to the bank what needs to be fixed.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on the other hand, “is just coming in,” he says. “They bring their attorneys for the exam, and then they levy the fines. If you see the fines they have levied against institutions, they’re not asking questions.”

One of the consequences, says, Hemingway, is that when it comes to consumer business, “The banks are going to do right down the middle, plain vanilla consumer business.” In a short interview after his presentation at the Rocky Mountain Economic Summit, held Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Hemingway said that banks’ reluctance trepidation on the consumer side could very well affect entrepreneurs’ abilities to get their companies off the ground. That’s because many entrepreneurs use consumer loans, based on their own personal credit ratings, to finance the early stages of their businesses.

In 2012, Zions ranked third nationwide in funding the first lien of SBA 504 loans.

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