SIFI
MetLife to shed bank holding statusPosted by RJ and Makay on Mar 23, 2012 |
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After failing to pass the Federal Reserve’s recent stress test, MetLife is moving to shed its bank holding status by the end of the second quarter, interim chief financial officer Eric Steigerwalt announced today. The Fed had blocked the insurer’s capital plans to increase its dividend and buy back stock because the company’s risk-based capital was less then the Fed required.
U.S. regulators have proposed a $50 billion asset level as the threshold for non-bank firms such as insurance companies, mutual funds and other big financial institutions to qualify as systematically important financial institutions (SIFIs) and come under additional regulatory scrutiny. This is the same asset threshold that large banks face from Dodd-Frank ‘Too Big to Fail’ legislation.
Health insurers are the largest lobbying spenders, as the property/casualty side and life insurers continue to invest in influencing Dodd-Frank reform implementation. In the first half of 2011, total insurance industry spending on federal lobbying reached $77.3 million, a pace slightly behind the $157.9 million reported for all of 2010, according to data by the independent Center for Responsive Politics and the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records.
