Is the OTS Obsolete? (U.S. Banker, subscription only)

. . . "The system has worked well enough," says Ellen Seidman, who ran the Office of Thrift Supervision under President Clinton and now directs the New America Foundation's Financial Services and Education Project in Washington, D.C. "It's a case of 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it.' Though it's entirely reasonable that people are raising these questions now, it's not great for morale."

Abolishing the OTS would only raise a number of other problems, including whether the two main regulatory duties--overseeing thrifts and overseeing holding-banking companies--would be given, respectively, to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, says Seidman. The OTS's input has been particularly necessary in ongoing discussions about interest-rate risk in 15- and 30-year mortgages, she says. . .