U.S. regulators are getting fed up with Wall Street’s attempts to stall a restriction on risky swaps trades, Bloomberg News reported today. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and other lenders have already won one delay of the measure that forces them to move derivatives out of units with federal backstops. Getting another reprieve is crucial for banks, because it would give them time to persuade a Republican-led Congress to kill the requirement. “Just because it’s authorized doesn’t mean it happens,” Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry said when asked whether Wall Street would get another extension, which regulators can grant under the Dodd-Frank Act. Banks should be ready to comply with a July deadline, he said. Lawmakers included the provision in Dodd-Frank to protect taxpayers from bank losses after souring derivatives trades spurred a government rescue of the financial industry in 2008. In 2013, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency provided a two-year delay on the condition that banks take reasonable steps to move swaps to affiliates that don’t benefit from federal deposit insurance.
