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Lawmakers agreed to give the U.S. Federal Reserve more
authority to tailor the capital requirements it places on big
insurers. The U.S. Senate approved the change in June, and it
now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.
"The Fed now has the opportunity to write rules that will
preserve competition and ensure affordable access to financial
security," MetLife Inc Chief Executive Officer Steven Kandarian
said in a statement.
Global regulators want banks to rely less on debt and more on
shareholder equity in an effort to make them more stable after
the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Dodd-Frank applied the same strict standard to big insurers and
other non-bank companies that regulators believe are risky
enough that their failure could threaten markets.
Insurers, however, said their business models were too different
from banks' to justify identical capital rules. They said
insurers hold different assets than banks do and are not subject
to runs on their businesses in crises.
Lawmakers, including Republican Senator Susan Collins, who wrote
the relevant section of Dodd-Frank, and many regulators
supported changing the law to give the Fed flexibility to write
rules specifically aimed at insurers.
The House passed legislation in September making that
adjustment, but it also included other changes to Dodd-Frank
that the Democrat-controlled Senate would not accept. On
Wednesday, the House approved the Senate version.
(Reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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