## Financial Regulatory Reform 

On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) into law. The Dodd-Frank Act represents a sweeping reform of the supervisory and regulatory framework applicable to financial institutions and capital markets in the United States, certain aspects of which are described below in more detail. The Dodd-Frank Act creates new federal governmental entities responsible for overseeing different aspects of the U.S. financial services industry, including identifying emerging systemic risks. It also shifts certain authorities and responsibilities among federal financial institution regulators, including the supervision of holding company affiliates and the regulation of consumer financial services and products. In particular, and among other things, the Dodd-Frank Act: creates the CFPB, which is authorized to regulate providers of consumer credit, savings, payment and other consumer financial products and services; narrows the scope of federal preemption of state consumer laws enjoyed by national banks and federal savings associations and expands the authority of state attorneys general to bring actions to enforce federal consumer protection legislation; imposes more stringent capital requirements on bank holding companies and subjects certain activities, including interstate mergers and acquisitions, to heightened capital conditions; significantly expands underwriting requirements applicable to loans secured by 1-4 family residential real property; restricts the interchange fees payable on debit card transactions for issuers with $10 billion in assets or greater; requires the originator of a securitized loan, or the sponsor of a securitization, to retain at least 5% of the credit risk of securitized exposures unless the underlying exposures are qualified residential mortgages or meet certain underwriting standards to be determined by regulation; creates a Financial Stability Oversight Council as part of a regulatory structure for identifying emerging systemic risks and improving interagency cooperation; provides for enhanced regulation of advisers to private funds and of the derivatives markets; enhances oversight of credit rating agencies; and prohibits banking agency requirements tied to credit ratings. 

Numerous provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act are required to be implemented through rulemaking by the appropriate federal regulatory agencies. Many of the required regulations have been issued and others have been released for public comment, but there remain a number that have yet to be released in any form. Furthermore, while the reforms primarily target systemically important financial service providers, their influence is expected to filter down in varying degrees to smaller institutions over time. Management of the Company and Bank will continue to evaluate the effect of the changes; however, in many respects, the ultimate impact of the Dodd-Frank Act will not be fully known for years, and no current assurance may be given that the Dodd-Frank Act, or any other new legislative changes, will not have a negative impact on the results of operations and financial condition of the Company and the Bank. 

## The Increasing Regulatory Emphasis on Capital 

The Company is subject to various regulatory capital requirements administered by the federal banking regulators noted above. Failure to meet regulatory capital requirements may result in certain mandatory and possible additional discretionary actions by regulators that, if undertaken, could have a direct material effect on the Company’s financial statements. Under capital adequacy guidelines and the regulatory framework for “prompt corrective action” (described below), the Company must meet specific capital guidelines that involve quantitative measures of its assets, liabilities and certain off-balance sheet items as calculated under regulatory accounting policies. The Company’s capital amounts and classifications are also subject to judgments by the regulators regarding qualitative components, risk weightings and other factors. 

While capital has historically been one of the key measures of the financial health of both bank holding companies and depository institutions, its role is becoming fundamentally more important in the wake of the financial crisis, as the regulators have recognized that the amount and quality of capital held by banking organizations was insufficient to absorb losses during periods of severe stress. Certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III, discussed below, will ultimately establish strengthened capital standards for banks and bank holding companies, will require more capital to be held in the form of common stock and will disallow certain funds from being included in capital determinations. Once fully implemented, these provisions will represent regulatory capital requirements that are meaningfully more stringent than those in place currently. 

Company and Bank Required Capital Levels. Bank holding companies have historically had to comply with less stringent capital standards than their bank subsidiaries and were able to raise capital with hybrid instruments such as trust preferred securities. The Dodd-Frank Act mandated the Federal Reserve to establish minimum capital levels for bank holding companies on a consolidated basis that are as stringent as those required for 

