Barney Frank News

Wall Street Barons Concede Failures, Offer No Apologies

Wall Street’s chiefs acknowledged taking on “too much risk” and having “choked” on their own cooking, but stopped short of an apology as they sparred with a commission looking into the financial crisis. The first public hearing of the Financial …

Lawmakers Press Treasury Secretary Geithner for AIG Testimony

Two prominent U.S. lawmakers Friday called for U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to testify to help determine if the New York Federal Reserve Bank improperly influenced insurer AIG to withhold information on its payments to banks after a government bailout. …

House Advances Sweeping Overhaul of Financial Services Regulation

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted Wednesday to give government regulators the power to break up financial firms that threaten economic stability, and to expose the Federal Reserve to unprecedented congressional scrutiny. In a milestone for the Obama administration’s …

Insurance Associations Concerned on Financial Stability Improvement Act

In an open letter addressed to Barney Frank, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, the largest U.S. insurance trade associations expressed their concerns over the recently passed Financial Stability Act’s possible implications. The letter, signed …

Financial Regulation Bill Unveiled; National Insurance Office Put Off

The Obama administration made gains Tuesday in its push for U.S. financial reform, unveiling a landmark bill to tackle systemic risk in the economy and winning congressional committee approval for a measure to expose hedge funds to more government scrutiny. …

House Panel Advances Bill on Credit Rating Agency Liability

Credit rating agencies would be more tightly regulated and more exposed to lawsuits under legislation approved Wednesday by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. In another procedural step forward for the Obama administration’s and congressional Democrats’ push for financial reform, …

House Panel Reshaping Credit Rating Agency Liability Bill

A U.S. congressional committee has dropped a key provision from a financial reform bill aimed at reducing investor reliance on credit ratings, according to draft legislation released on Tuesday. The provision, first proposed by the Obama administration, calls for across-the-board …

Frank Memo on Financial Consumer Protection Agency Identifies Exemptions

The following are excerpts from Rep. Barney Frank’s memo to Democratic lawmakers on the possible changes to the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Nonfinancial Businesses Exempt – Merchants, retailers and other nonfinancial businesses will be excluded from the regulation and …

Administration Backs Financial Consumer Agency; Bill Exempts P/C

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner argued forcefully Wednesday for creating a government watchdog for financial consumers, while giving cautious support to paring back its scope. Amid stiff resistance by banks and Republicans to the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Geithner …

White House Calls for ‘Urgency’ on Financial Regulation Reform

The Obama administration’s ambitious plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation was bogged down in Congress as it returned from a long recess Tuesday. With no clear path forward in the Senate, analysts and lobbyists said Democrats would be hard-pressed to …