February 7, 2014
My main concern with these regulations is the nonsensical requirement for regulated entities to collect diversity data from suppliers. You Washington DC people need to get your head out of the ephemereal cloud and realize how the real world works.
This requirement to collect diversity data from suppliers is absurb and completely unworkable. This is especially true for small banking institutions. There is a reason that there are not any new banks being opened. The FDIC opened 1 new bank in three years. Why? because the process is too burdensome and expensive.
Let me explain to you how absurd this is. Imagine a small bank with 51 employees. Lets say they want to order some pens. They could go to staples and order them and then at the checkout out ask for the cashier to provide the diversity data. Really they would just laugh. Or if they want to consider a new landscape company to mow their lawns. So they ask the companies to give them a report of their data. The company will either say go to hell, sure but I will charge you more to get that data, or yeah that is easy there are three people that work for the company. Imagine those three people are all white, will the bank need to find another company that hires more "diverse" people.
If the bank somehow manages to actually get the data that no suppliers would have the next step would be to analyze it. So the bank would have to hire a new person to analyze this data and create reports. And unlike the federal government they cannot just raise taxes. They would have to pass the cost on to their consumer they will also have to pass on the increased fees the government charges for hiring people to process this data. Guess what then people will find a different bank.
These type of regulations and "statements" (funny how a policy statement uses mandatory langauge in it like should and must) make it impossible for small businesses to operate. These types of regulations are why the FDIC has not approved any new banks. No small bank can afford this burden.