Banks paid $321 billion in fines since financial crisis: BCG

(Reuters) – Banks across the world have paid about $321 billion in fines since the 2007-2008 financial crisis as regulators stepped up scrutiny, according to a note by the Boston Consulting Group.

Almost ten years since the financial crisis, the banking industry has not completely recovered, BCG said in an industry report.

North American banks accounted for nearly 63 percent of the total fines, or about $204 billion, during 2009-2016, the consultancy firm said.

While U.S. regulators have been more effective in imposing penalties and recovering fines from the banks, their counterparts in Europe and Asia are likely to step up pace, according to the BCG report.

The number of individual regulatory changes that banks must track on a global scale has more than tripled since 2011, to an average of 200 revisions per day, the report said.

Even though U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered reviews for possible regulatory changes and legislations modifying the Dodd-Frank Act, the consulting group said regulatory impacts would continue to cost banks a lot going forward.

Trump and other critics of the Dodd-Frank law say its regulations have hindered lending.

In February, Trump ordered reviews of major banking rules that were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, in favor of looser banking regulation.

(Reporting by Vishaka George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)