In interviews with small-bank executives, nearly all backed a framework closer to that of Glass-Steagall, which was repealed in 1999. However, they disagreed on exactly what a new system should look like.
"I wish the regulatory structure that was in place in 1998 was still in place today," said Stephen Hailer, the president and chief executive officer of the $158 million-asset North Akron Savings Bank in Ohio. "I was never in favor of repealing Glass-Steagall. There was a reason it was put in place."
Many said the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the law that broke down the walls between banking, insurance and securities firms, dangerously allowed companies to combine government-insured banking platforms with complex trading activities. Several voices have called for stronger walls between those operations, but proposals vary.
A strict return to Glass-Steagall — and its ban on banks engaging in other activities — is unlikely. But a proposal by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board member Thomas Hoenig is narrower. It would forbid a bank with FDIC-backed funding to operate the types of riskier trading units that in the crisis greatly increased the government's exposure.
The result would effectively break up the large banks. Yet unlike Glass-Steagall, Hoenig's plan would still allow banking companies to engage in certain activities deemed less risky, such as asset management, issuing stocks and bonds, and advising investment-bank clients about merger deals.
While community bankers mostly agree that stronger restrictions on a bank's ability to expand into complex activities are necessary, the details are a matter of some debate.
"There is such a diverse view on this. I've had several community banks say that tearing down the walls was the worst thing ever… and now you can't separate the risk side from the traditional banking side," said Randy Dennis, president of DD&F Consulting Group in Little Rock, Ark. "I've had others who still want to be involved in insurance or brokerage who say that it can be modified to eliminate some of the risk while allowing banks to still do some of these things," Dennis said. "Most of our smaller bank clients are for some type of restoration of the walls… but there is not a clear technical understanding of how that would work."
Some executives also note that the affiliates that many Main Street banks wish to operate are far different from the complex activities at large banks. "There may be a day here when we're looking for non-interest income and have to go the route of buying or selling an insurance agency," says Salvatore Marranca, president and chief executive of the $187 million-asset Cattaraugus County Bank in Little Valley, N.Y. "There may be a day when some of my customers may want to have some type of stock or wealth management account. Those are consistent with normal financial products and services. But when you get into the world of hedge funds and derivatives and proprietary trading, that's a whole other world and has to be separated."
Indeed, many small bank executives appear to be coalescing around Hoenig's idea.
"If you're going to take on activities that include hedge fund activities or proprietary trading where you're using federally insured deposits … they just don't belong within a commercial banking structure. There should be a firewall," said Stephen Gardner, president and chief executive of Pacific Premier Bank, a $1.1 billion-asset institution in Costa Mesa, Calif. "Otherwise you shouldn't be in the business of taking federally insured deposits."
The Independent Community Bankers of America says it is prepared to support legislative steps to implement the Hoenig proposal.
"I would call the Hoenig plan a 21st century version of Glass Steagall," said Camden Fine, ICBA's president and chief executive officer.
Fine said that while simply reinstating Glass-Steagall "would only impact community banks around the edges," the Hoenig plan "is a superior model to the original version."
"When the new Congress reconvenes next year, ICBA will go back to the policy makers on Capitol Hill and very much advance and support the Hoenig proposals. What form that will take legislatively, I don't know," he said. "But we'll be very supportive of any bills introduced that would implement the Hoenig proposals."
But some bankers said restoring Glass-Steagall today as it existed in the 1990s would be impossible.
"You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube very easily. … Glass-Steagall was written decades ago, and decades ago they did not have the technology they have today. The financial world has changed," said Michael Middleton, chairman and chief executive officer of Tri-County Financial Corp. and its $972 million-asset Community Bank of Tri-County in Waldorf, Md.
