Yellen to call for more financial stability work, thoughtful regulation

(Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will call for continued work to ensure a resilient financial system, including pursuing thoughtful regulation and pushing back against those who want to roll back bank capital requirements.

Yellen, in excerpts of remarks to be delivered at a Treasury markets conference in New York, said reforms instituted after the 2007-2009 financial crisis have helped the system weather turbulence including the pandemic and more recent regional bank difficulties.

“Work to build and maintain a resilient financial system is never over. We’ll never be able to just declare victory,” Yellen said in the remarks to the conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“A resilient financial system is critical to a strong economy. And strengthening it requires insisting on thoughtful regulation, including in the face of challenges from those who advocate to roll back policies and regulations,” she added.

Yellen said that when she took office in January 2021, she worked to rebuild the government’s focus on financial stability to ensure a system that could serve households and businesses and support prosperity.

This included a focus on safe and sound financial institutions, financial market utilities, central clearing counterparties and protections for investors and consumers.

This framework helped enable Treasury to take steps to protect the banking system from contagion in the spring of 2023 after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (OTC:SBNY), Yellen said.

“At home, there were some who strongly opposed the Dodd-Frank Act, arguing that its regulation would hold back innovation and economic growth,” Yellen said, referring to the 2010 financial reform law. “I and many others have insisted on the opposite. Appropriate regulation is critical to supporting a resilient financial system that serves as an engine for innovation and growth.”

Warnings that Dodd Frank would leave the U.S. banking sector uncompetitive failed to be realized while higher-quality capital required by the law allowed banks to extend credit to households and businesses that needed it during the pandemic, Yellen said.