- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said that while Wall Street may welcome less regulation, the financial sector always ends up paying through the teeth for its oversights.
Jamie Dimon says bankers are “dancing in the street” at the idea of another Donald Trump administration, anticipating a rollback of Biden-era regulations. But not everyone on Wall Street is eager to adjust course. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan plans to stick with his current strategy.
Speaking to the Financial Times, the Wall Street veteran was asked if he would be more open to risk under a regulation-lite environment.
“No,” was the response, with Moynihan adding: “We run the company the same way we always run it.”
Moynihan—and indeed BofA more broadly—has a very clear focus on risk and managing it within the institution—even to the point of criticism.
“At Bank of America, our purpose is to make financial lives better for those we serve through the power of every connection we can make for them,” a statement on the organization’s website reads.
While Moynihan said his company would benefit from a looser grip by the central government, he maintained that ultimately, financial institutions flying too close to the sun will pay the price.
“We want a good set of rules that are fair to everybody, help us support growth, but also help keep the industry what it is, the best capitalized and best run industry in the world,” Moynihan told the FT. “Because at the end of the day, we end up paying for mistakes.”
Moynihan has led the bank through stormy seas several times, not least in the aftermath of the financial crisis, when he famously secured the backing of investor Warren Buffett.
More recently, the sector was shocked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—an example Moynihan used to reiterate how costly his industry’s oversights can be: “Silicon Valley [Bank] fails, we paid $2.7bn for that. It’s not a small number if these companies fail. We’d rather have them be run well.”
The sustainability question
Under a second Trump term, questions about the sustainability agenda are also being asked. After all, this is a man who took America out of the Paris Climate Accords and has been known to deny global warming.
That being said, Moynihan is standing by the work his bank does in the green economy.
That work has brought him closer to other notable world leaders, such as King Charles III of the United Kingdom.
The pair work together on the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a project launched by the monarch, then Prince of Wales, in 2020, aimed at supporting the private sector to meet its net-zero targets.
Speaking of King Charles, Moynihan said: “His knowledge is very deep. His ability to get people to work together and his belief in the private sector…made it unique. I see him a lot. He’s a great person, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know each other.”