US banking sector safe enough for deregulation: former Morgan Stanley CEO

 The United States banking industry is in a total safe state and it is ready for some deregulation to sustain development, former Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley John J. Mack has said here.

The regulatory oversight now is dramatic in the financial sector, the amount of capital that firms appearing is huge, and the amount of risk has been de-risked, Mack said in an event titled "Conversations with Global Business Leaders" in New York on Thursday.

Mack, the CEO who led the investment bank through the 2008 financial crisis, said that situation now is completely different from nine years ago in the banking industry.

The financial crisis in 2008 began with a crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, and developed into a global banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Many considered that excessive risk taken by banks was the major cause of the crisis.

"Today there are a lot more regulation; the Federal Reserve is much more involved in the risks that investment banks take. The banks clearly remember what they went through, there is much more focus on risk control," Mack said.

"Now I don't see any risk from overexposure too much leverage, also we have done a lot of work on cleaning up the housing market and mortgages," he added.

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, former U.S. President Barack Obama enacted a bill called the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010.

Under the law, regulators introduced strict capital standards on banks, called for annual stress tests for systemically important banks, and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to scale back Dodd-Frank Act, saying the Wall Street reform law is a "disaster" and "horrible" for business vitality.

The financial sector in the stock market posted sharp gains since Trump was elected, surging 18 percent on his promise to cut bank regulations.

Trump's viewpoints were echoed by Mack, who said that too much regulation may hurt the market.

"There does need some change in the regulatory oversize," he said. "The stocks may go down in the future with too much control."

source: Xinhua