Although the new consumer agency is designed to protect consumers, it will also ease the regulatory burden on financial services providers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said today.
"Financial firms will benefit from a streamlined and minimized regulatory burden,'' Dodd (D-Conn.) said in a speech at New York University.
He also said the agency doesn't really give the government much more power.
"This reform doesn't create any significant new government authority. What it does is take the existing authority that is currently scattered throughout this alphabet soup of ineffective regulators, and consolidates it into one focused and effective bureau,'' he added.
Dodd, one of the two key sponsors of the regulatory overhaul bill that created the new agency, didn't spell out what regulations might be streamlined.
He also said the agency was housed in the Federal Reserve rather than made an independent entity to protect its funding.
Dodd, who had previously expressed concern about having Elizabeth Warren as the agency's first director, praised the decision by the Obama administration to have her set up the agency.
