Banking regulations have swung too far toward the extreme since the Wall Street meltdown in 2008, which is preventing the economy from moving forward, says the head of a Washington bank.
“We need balance,” J. Scott Wilfong, president and CEO of SunTrust Bank of Greater Washington, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. “I’m not somebody who says you have no regulations. But we should have balanced regulations.”
In an interview, Mr. Wilfong criticized changes in the federal regulatory environment since the crisis, saying the government has overreacted to the financial crisis with heavy regulations and said that has contributed to a negative reputation for the banking industry.
He also said the Washington market could be particularly vulnerable if the federal government goes over the looming “fiscal cliff” at the end of the year.
The “fiscal cliff” refers to a number of defense and non-defense cuts in government spending, along with the expiration of the George W. Bush tax cuts at the end of the year, if Congress and the White House don’t reach a new budget deal.
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