WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Cali.), chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter to Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Jelena McWilliams, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, calling on them to postpone any final decisions on the SunTrust and BB&T merger application until after the Committee has conducted a full and thorough review of the proposed merger.
“The proposed merger warrants serious scrutiny from Congress,” wrote Chairwoman Waters. “This is especially true given the rubber-stamping bank merger applications receive from regulators as demonstrated by the recent data regarding the Federal Reserve’s reviews. As the Committee intends to conduct thorough oversight of this merger, including holding our own public hearings on the matter, I respectfully ask that your agencies defer any final decisions on the merger application until after the Committee completes a full and thorough review of the proposed merger.”
These are issues raised by the Publishers for Economic Parity in their articles ‘Critics Concerned BB&T and SunTrust is a Path to a Too Big to Fail Type of Crisis—Minorities Listen Up – A Call to Action.’
In her letter, the chairwoman also expresses concerns about the impact this merger will have on bank employees and rural and underserved markets, and urges regulators to increase their efforts to hear a wide range of stakeholder perspectives by holding additional public hearings in other states affected by the merger.
In February, following the announcement that SunTrust and BB&T plan to merge, Chairwoman Waters called the proposed merger a, “direct consequence of the deregulatory agenda that Trump and Congressional Republicans have advanced,” and she questioned the public benefit it would have for consumers.
