Senate financial bill appears likely to keep Fed as regulator of big banks

By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Key members of the Senate banking committee are coalescing around legislation that would strip the Federal Reserve of much of its regulatory authority but would leave the central bank with oversight of the nation's largest banks, according to aides familiar with the ongoing negotiations.

Under the plan, the Fed would continue to supervise only 23 bank-holding companies with assets exceeding $100 billion. Supervision of the nearly 5,000 banks below that threshold would fall largely to a proposed new regulator to be created by merging the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, aides said.