Wall Street Takes Fight Over Arcane Banking Rules to Main Street
Big banks want to convince the public they should worry about Basel III financial regulations.
In recent weeks dozens of entrepreneurs have paraded through the US Capitol, carrying signs reading “Stop the Squeeze on Small Businesses” and knocking on the doors of their representatives and senators. Regulations under consideration, they insist, will cut into profits at consignment stores, pizza parlors, auto body shops and more. “This proposal will increase borrowing costs,” Dina Akel, the owner of a New Hampshire bridal boutique, wrote on LinkedIn, making it harder “for small businesses to secure essential funding to hire more workers, and for farmers to take out loans for next year’s crops.”
The ground rules of global banking don’t typically get people outside of a few boardrooms in New York, London and Zurich particularly fired up. But as the financial world debates US proposals tied to what’s called the Basel III Endgame—an international overhaul initiated more than a decade ago in response to the financial crisis of 2008—Wall Street lobbyists are in overdrive and seeking to drag US public opinion along with them.