As the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency take over supervision of thrifts and their holding companies, S&Ls have grown increasingly scared about a possible crackdown on their business.
Though by law thrifts still comply with most of the same capital and other standards they have faced for decades, they and their representatives said they expect the new regulators to force them to comply with bank-like requirements.
For many thrifts, that would mean holding more capital at the holding company level, complying with tougher lending limits and facing more skeptical examiners.
"One of the concerns we would have as a thrift under the OCC is, are they used to regulating a thrift that has a concentration in assets, [as] we do with single-family mortgages?" said John Dicus, the president and chief executive officer of $8.5 billion-asset Capitol Federal Financial in Topeka, Kan. "There are not as many banks that have concentrations in an asset class, so that's a concern."
Their fears are primarily due to a perception that the Office of Thrift Supervision, which is to be disbanded under the recently enacted regulatory reform law but which has another year before it officially closes its doors, was insufficiently tough on its institutions.
Though the agency adamantly denies the charge, many industry representatives said the Fed and the OCC will take a long, hard look at their new charges to ensure they are properly supervised.
"At the thrift level, where the OCC is replacing the OTS, the concern is, will the OCC kick the tires harder to prove the OTS wasn't a good regulator?" said Lawrence Kaplan, a lawyer at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP. "That's a concern for a lot of people."
