“While the regulatory reform effort is likely to continue on its current path if Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve Board’s vice chairman, is tapped to lead the central bank, the future is decidedly murkier if Larry Summers wins the post.

“There are a number of open questions on how the former Treasury secretary might drive the Fed when it comes to bank supervision and regulation, including how well he would work with colleagues like Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo and how deep his interest in the subject would be.

“While the chairman selection has always been important to bankers, it has become even more so in the wake of the Dodd-Frank Act, which gave the Fed substantially more power over regulatory policy.

“‘If there was ever a time for a Fed chair to take more of a role in regulatory issues, it would be now given how much more responsibility the Fed has and how central to what the Fed’s overall task is of an institution now all tied up in regulatory policy,’ said Wayne Abernathy, executive vice president for financial institutions policy for the American Bankers Association.”

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