subject: Obama Meets Bankers [print this page] To accelerate the economic activities and to bring them back on the track at a faster rate, the US President Barack Obama, met the top executives of Americas major banks on Monday, December 14, 2009. He urged the executives to explore every responsible way to accelerate the process of lending. The agenda of the meet was to exchange ideas and bring out ways to increase lending to Small and medium businesses who are complaining a deprivation of credit from banks. Speaking at the meeting which took place in the White house, Mr. Obama, expected an extraordinary commitment from the nations top bankers and urged them to help administration to revitalize the economy and bring it back on track as soon as possible. He stipulated that banks should find more and more ways to grant loans to creditworthy small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which he thinks are the main source of employment generation in the US. After the harsh criticism of bankers on a program broadcasted on CBS on Sunday, Mr. Obama looked a bit optimistic and called his session with the leaders of 12 dominant banks, as frank and productive discussion. However, giving a glimpse of his Sundays jibes, Mr. Obama told banks to close the gap and support the endeavors of regulatory reforms in the financial-services industry. The U.S. Bankcorps CEO Richard Davis who attended the meeting declared the meeting as productive and denied any kind of disagreement between the Bankers and the Administration. Mr. Davis said that the President, unlike Sundays meet didnt call the bankers with any name. He was primarily referring to President Obamas fat cats moniker, which the President had used to refer to bankers in his Sundays interview to CBS. However, earlier on December 14, 2009, the US banking giant, Citigroup initiated steps to emancipate itself from the clutches of government protection and asserted that it was ready to redeem the $20 billion, which it had last year received as help from the government under the Toxic Assets Relief Program (TARP). By doing this, Citigroup will exit the program under the purview of which the US government would had covered billions of dollars as a part of loan losses. The Treasury Department stated that it will begin to sell its 34% stake in the Citigroup by selling first of its $5 billion in common stocks and will sell the remaining in the coming 6 to 12 months. J.P Morgan Chases, Mr. Dimon said that J.P. Morgan is taking all the necessary steps to lend a helping hand to small businesses and to accelerate the growth of lending process. He said Chase is doing its part in modifying the mortgages for lashed homeowners and is ready to support some of the regulatory reforms. Furthermore, Chase has also showed its willingness of providing sound bankers a compensation. But at the same time, it also raised its concerns over some of the regulatory proposals, which they think can restrict the lending capacity of banks and can also hurt economic growth and job creation in the Country. The meeting which Mr. Obama had primarily called to push for more lending was attended by several Americas top banking executives of leading banks and was also hosted by some of the most esteemed diplomats from the Obama Administration. Though Mr. Obama termed his meeting with bankers as candid and productive, there is still a big question mark on whether the President will be able to persuade the bankers to support the regulatory reforms which he thinks can prevent the US economy from experiencing another economic recession in the future.
Obama Meets Bankers
By: REI Circle
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