On March 28, the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit held a hearing that examined recent trends in lending and how the current regulatory climate impacts the availability of credit for consumers and small businesses. According to a memorandum issued prior to the hearing by the House Financial Services Committee, the hearing sought to address the decline in “[l]ending by community financial institutions . . . since the passage of the Dodd-Frank [Act].” Specifically, the memo notes that in the six years prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, small bank lending was more than 150 percent above large bank lending. In the more than six years after Dodd-Frank, small bank lending has been nearly 80 percent below large bank lending. A witness list for the single-panel hearing (along with links to prepared remarks submitted by each witness) included the following stakeholders: 

• Scott Heitkamp, President and Chief Executive Officer, ValueBank Texas, on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America;
• Holly Wade, Director, Research and Policy Analysis, National Federation of Independent Businesses;
• J. David Motley, President, Colonial Companies, on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association; and
• Michael Calhoun, President, Center for Responsible Lending.

In a press release issued by the Financial Services Committee following the hearing, majority members of the subcommittee identified the “Key Takeaways from the Hearing,” as (i) “Dodd-Frank has left Americans with fewer choices, higher costs and less freedom”; (ii) “Financial institutions are exiting entire lines of business, limiting the availability of products and services for consumers”; and (iii) “[t]he Financial CHOICE Act will increase access to credit for consumers and capital for small businesses.”

An archived webcast of the hearing may be accessed here.