Pittenger calls for return to lighter bank regulations

Congressman Robert Pittenger questions FIDC Inspector General Jon Rymer

 

 

U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger called for a lighter regulatory environment for community banks at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee today, saying that he's heard from community bank presidents in the Charlotte region who describe the post-Dodd Frank landscape as "oppressive."

 

Pittenger, a Charlotte Republican elected to the office last fall, was a director at Park Meridian Bank for 14 years, in the 1990s and early 2000s. The bank sold to Regions Bank in 2001. He cited that experience and said he hoped for a return to a lighter regulatory environment more like that era.

 

He described difficulty in obtaining capital, the lack of new bank charters and consolidation in the industry as symptoms.

 

"All this leads us to believe that the need for relief today, to create that same environment back when we had back during those positive years, and to recognize that perhaps what we’re doing today through the regulations are creating creating more difficulty and impediments than protections," he said.