April 2013
| Business World Magazine | 319
Fine. “The tragedy is that the federal regula-
tory agencies too often have a one-size-fits-
all mentality. He says “it is absurd” to paint
small community banks with the same reg-
ulatory brush as a megabank because “they
bear no closer resemblance than a horse does
to an alligator.”
In the wake of criminality and legislation
designed to prevent its furtherance, Fine lik-
ens regulatory processes to using an elephant
gun approach whose impact would directly
hurt small banking firms that don’t deserve
to be in the line of fire in the first place. In
fact, regulations and costs of compliance will
ultimately affect community banks more
greatly than the large conglomerates. Fine
also asserts that the only reason regulators
take such approach is “because they can.”
Small community banks don’t have the re-
sources, or the ability to intimidate and ob-
struct regulators the way the large banks do,
says Fine.
Inmaking a point about the recent HSBC
scandal, Fine expresses outrage that federal
prosecutors actually acknowledged that they
wouldn’t criminally prosecute the bank’s se-
nior management because the financial in-
stitution is so huge and international that
it might destabilize the economy. “You’ve
heard of too big to fail, these are too big to
jail. These guys can just break the law and get
away with it, but if that was executives from a
community bank, they would be handcuffed
and sent to jail, his assets would be seized,
the bank would go into receivership or go
completely out of business.”
While Fine acknowledges the need for
roximately 3,365 hours to community service.
nity United Way campaign.
