Sheila Bair, the feisty chairwoman of Washington’s deposit insurance agency who fought the coddling of big banks in the financial crisis, announced Monday that she would leave the agency in July when her term expires.
Bair, 57, has headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures deposits and helps police banks, since June 2006.
During the financial crisis that erupted in 2008 she pressed for stronger protections for depositors and for powers to intervene and take over banks before they failed.
She also criticized the bailouts of larger banks using taxpayer funds, the huge salaries and benefits paid to bank executives, and their outsized political influence in Washington.
Helped by her push, the new Dodd-Frank rules on financial institution regulation in 2010 gave the FDIC more powers to intervene in weak banks and non-bank financial institutions.
In July 2008 she was named by Forbes magazine the world’s second most powerful woman after German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Bair’s departure will be effective July 8, the FDIC said.
Washington, May 9, 2011 (AFP)
