On September 20, 2012, the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR), a trade organization representing the 100 largest financial services companies in the country, announced that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will become its new President and Chief Executive Officer on November 1. Pawlenty will succeed Steve Bartlett, who announced his retirement plans in March. Pawlenty spent 15 years as a labor lawyer before serving as a state representative and later Governor of Minnesota.

FSR actively lobbies for changes to the Dodd-Frank Act and its supporting regulations. Its goals include defeating Dodd-Frank’s price controls on debit card fees, the Volcker Rule, and whistleblower provisions. Dodd-Frank requires the drafting of over 300 new regulations that will apply to banks and other financial firms. FSR took the lead on past deregulation efforts, including some of the efforts to repeal the Glass-Steagall restrictions on affiliations between banks and insurance companies. FSR has also filed amici briefs in several important financial cases at both the appellate and Supreme Court level.

Most recently, FSR submitted a comment to the House Financial Services Committee in response to a request seeking comment on the Volcker Rule.  FSR urged a re-evaluation of the Volcker Rule and suggested that Congress should rely on previously proposed capital regulations – for example, increased capital requirements on trading and funds activities – rather than turning to the Volcker Rule’s “intent-based” activities restrictions.