Federal Reserve officials on Tuesday offered their support to the nation's community banks, acknowledging that the complex financial reform effort is saddling small lenders with a heavy supervision load. Kansas City Fed President Esther George, Fed Board Governor Jerome Powell and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard all addressed the issue at a community banking conference here. George gave the sharpest remarks, saying that the Fed is too reliant on rules that were meant for large investment banks. "In spite of legislators' and regulators' best intentions, customers and communities that rely on smaller banks for access to credit are feeling the weight of regulatory burden, and bankers are pleading for relief," George told a St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank conference. George said simpler capital rules such as leverage ratios are better than risk-weighted ratios for predicting default at small banks. She acknowledged that community banks don't always get things right, but
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