Recovery Waits on Bank Regulators

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Banks are in a holding pattern these days, waiting to hear specifics from regulators about new capital requirements.

The situation has, for a large part, put the brakes on lending, industry consolidation (beyond swooping in on failed institutions), and even capital investment in their existing businesses, at the same time as economists, market observers and government officials are urging banks to put money to work in order to aid in the broad economy's recovery.

"Regulatory uncertainty is having a chilling effect on all operations," says Scott Talbott, a lobbyist with The Financial Services Roundtable, a trade group representing Citigroup (C Quote), Bank of America (BAC Quote), General Electric (GE Quote) and other large financial companies.

The issue comes up again and again in conference calls with analysts, though the impact of this uncertainty is often overlooked.

"It's still too early to tell exactly where the capital regulations are going to come out," said Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) CFO David Viniar, during the bank's presentation related to its third-quarter results last month. "We manage our risk very, very conservatively and always have, but I think we're still in a wait-and-see mode."

One reason that U.S. regulators seem to be dragging their feet is a desire for domestic standards be comparable with international rules, although it's not as if the rest of the world has arrived at any sort of consensus.

"You've got speed cameras on the road without knowing what the speed limit is," says Kinner Lakhani, London-based analyst at Citigroup who follows European banks such as Deutsche Bank (DB Quote)and UBS (ubs Quote).