1992-06-24
To the Congress of the United States:
I am pleased to transmit for your immediate consideration and enactment the ``Credit Availability and Regulatory Relief Act of 1992.'' This proposed legislation will enhance the availability of credit in the economy by reducing regulatory burdens on depository institutions. Also transmitted is a section-by-section analysis.
The regulatory burden on the Nation's financial intermediaries has reached a level that imposes unacceptable costs on the economy as a whole. Needless regulations restrict credit, slowing economic growth and job creation. Excessive costs weaken financial institutions, exposing the taxpayer to the risk of loss. Rigid supervisory formulas distort business decisions and discourage banks, thrifts, and credit unions from pursuing their core lending activities. In 1991, the Nation's banks spent an estimated .7 billion on regulatory compliance, or over 59 percent of the system's entire annual profit. We cannot allow this unnecessary and oppressive burden to continue weighing down the consumer and business lending that will fuel economic recovery.
The Credit Availability and Regulatory Relief Act of 1992 reduces or eliminates a wide range of these unnecessary financial institution costs. Among the significant changes that would be made by the bill are:
Elimination of the requirement that banking agencies develop detailed ``micromanagement'' regulations for every aspect of an institution's managerial and operational conduct, from the compensation of employees to the ratio of market value to book value of an institution's stock;
Enactment of a statutory requirement that the regulations of the various Federal banking agencies be as uniform as possible, to avoid the complexity, inconsistencies, and comparative distortions that result from widely varying regulatory practices;
Reduction of audit costs, by returning auditors to their traditional function of investigating the accuracy of depository institution financial statements and eliminating the costly and misguided expansion of their role over legal and managerial matters;
Alleviation of the significant paperwork burden imposed by the Community Reinvestment Act on small, rural depository institutions without exempting such institutions from the substantive requirements to satisfy the credit needs of their entire communities -- coupled with creation of incentives for institutions to reach higher levels of compliance by streamlining expansion procedures for institutions with outstanding Community Reinvestment Act ratings; and
Elimination of the requirement that the Federal Reserve write detailed ``bright line'' regulations on the amounts of credit that one depository can extend to another, thus retaining the Federal Reserve's existing flexibility to supervise the payments system without unduly inhibiting correspondent banking relationships.
These changes, and the others made by the bill, will result in significant reductions to the administrative costs of depository institutions -- costs that are currently passed on to borrowers in the form of restricted credit and higher priced loans.
I would like to emphasize that none of the bill's provisions will compromise in any way the safety and soundness of the financial system. The legislation makes no changes to those elements of the Administration's proposed supervisory reforms that the Congress did adopt last year. All existing capital standards will remain in force and will be neither weakened nor modified by the proposed legislation; the ``prompt corrective action'' framework mandating swift regulatory responses to developing institutional problems will remain unchanged; and bank regulators will continue to have exceptionally tough enforcement powers.
The legislation I am transmitting to you today is a broad and responsible solution to one of the major problems facing our financial system. The financial industry, the economy, and the public generally will benefit from enactment of this regulatory relief. I therefore urge the Congress to give high priority to the passage of the Administration's reforms.
George Bush
The White House,
June 24, 1992.
