Gary Parr, the vice chairman of Lazard, called the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law “broadly the right approach,” but several industry figures still think one of its biggest problems is clarity.
“You haven’t really lived until you’ve got different regulators telling you to do different things,” said Sallie Krawcheck, the business leader at the women’s network 85 Broads, adding, “When you point out to them that they’re telling you to do different things, they just shrug their shoulders and tell you” to figure the regulations out.
Ms. Krawcheck and Mr. Parr spoke during a panel discussion of Dodd-Frank at DealBook’s Opportunities for Tomorrow Conference on Tuesday. Other panelists included Ruth Porat, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley; Neil M. Barofsky, a partner at Jenner & Block; and Robert Wolf, the founder and chief executive of the advisory firm 32 Advisors.
Another issue for Wall Street is public perception. Despite increased regulation, many Americans still have a negative view of the big banks and other large financial institutions. Ms. Krawcheck referred to the “greedy bankers” who many on Main Street blame for the collapse of the financial system in 2008.
But Dodd-Frank has led to some positive change, according to a number of speakers at Tuesday’s conference.
“One of the important elements of Dodd-Frank was derivative reform,” Ms. Porat said, referring to a part of the law intended to make derivative trading less opaque.
Ms. Porat praised the increased standardization, but she also questioned whether the move just shifted the risk to clearing houses, which have been tasked with improving transparency for such transactions.