FDIC Chairwoman: 'Too Big to Fail' Must End

LOS ANGELES-”We need to go back to basics and back to fundamentals with banking,” said FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair to attendees at a TOWN HALL Los Angeles event, held at the Regency Club Wednesday morning. “We want a financial system that will support financial growth.”

During her speech, Bair–who was sworn in as the 19th chairman of the FDIC–shed light on the present economy and financial system and discussed some of the FDIC’s current priorities, one of which is “resolution authority,” which is intended to fill a void in the current financial services regulatory structure. The idea of “too big to fail” needs to end, she explained. “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future and are working our way out of it now.”

Bair, who called herself an optimist, said that “we need better, smarter and more effective regulations, which will get us a long way back to where we should be.” She added that “borrowers need to be prudently underwritten and we need to make sure they can repay their loans.”