Question: What are some potential regulatory changes affecting lending institutions that businesses should be aware of?
Anthony Austin
Director
Fennemore Craig
Sector: Law
Regulatory changes typically have a direct impact on the ability of banks to service their customer base. This is particularly true of community/regional banks for whom servicing privately owned and local businesses is key to their business models and financial success. However, regulatory compliance is a significant cost that limits a bank’s ability to service these businesses. Currently, there is debate about potential rollbacks or elimination of regulations that impact the financial services markets. Notably Dodd-Frank, enacted as a result of the 2008-09 recession, is getting a lot of attention. If these discussions result in policy changes that streamline the regulations that banks face, businesses should be prepared to see banks provided with the opportunity to reach more potential customers and respond to the needs of their clients on a more nimble basis. Streamlined regulation and the reduced cost of compliance have the potential to allow banks to be more active in offering more competitive loans and other products to businesses. This reduced cost and increase in activity provides a direct benefit to businesses who can leverage the banks to increase growth.
Anthony Austin is a director at Fennemore Craig and practices in the areas of bankruptcy, creditors’ rights and restructuring. He represents financial institutions, debtors, creditors and trustees in all phases of complex litigation and restructuring transactions, including trials and appeals. Austin has a wide range of commercial litigation experience involving foreclosures, receiverships, and guarantor litigation.
Darren Case
Shareholder
Tiffany & Bosco, P.A.
Sector: Law
Tax and estate planning, which has not been a priority of Congress for quite some time, may be holding up the potential regulatory changes affecting lending institutions. Consequently, the regulatory changes to look for in 2018 are perhaps the same ones anticipated coming into 2017 following the Presidential election. In general, none of the significant regulatory proposals have yet to really surface with everything presently going on in Washington, D.C. For example, there certainly have been discussions regarding the amending or repealing of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but not much progress has been made one way or another due to the administration’s previous focus on healthcare reform and now current focus on comprehensive tax reform. Considering the current proposal on tax reform may involve a complete overhaul of various areas of the tax code, the administration’s focus on this may go well into the early part of 2018. While it certainly is possible for significant regulatory changes impacting lending institutions to be proposed, it very well might pose a difficult path in being passed before the November 2018 election.
Darren T. Case is a tax and estate planning shareholder attorney for Tiffany & Bosco, P.A., licensed in the State of Arizona. He is the co-author of the Arizona Estate Planning and Probate Handbook, published by Thomson Reuters; guest contributor for articles published on Forbes.com; former president for the Central Arizona Estate Planning Council; and an Honored Advisor of the American Cancer Society.
