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Others worry that bank lobbyists may use the coronavirus crisis to push their own agenda forward. “This postponement should make us wonder whether banks are indeed as wellcapitalised as lobbyists have been saying they are for the last few years,” said Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal at risk consultancy firm MRV Associates. “I’m very concerned that when the pandemic finally ends, they will take advantage of the situation to request further delays and ease on bank capital and leverage requirements. Regulators should be requiring more from banks, not less.”

“Thus far, banks have not made changes to lines that are already approved,” says Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, a banking regulation and capital markets consultant. “If they were to do that, it would be outrageous given that companies need liquidity more than ever to keep people employed.” However, “if this crisis intensifies, banks certainly will raise rates and shorten maturities for new lines before they approve them.”

Mayra Rodríguez Valladares, managing principal of MRV Associates, said community banks may be better at getting those loans out the door than the big guys. “They don’t have huge staffs, they don’t have a lot of red tape,” she said. “Community banks — their specialty is indeed taking deposits and lending.” For the Paycheck Protection Program, regulators temporarily loosened rules on how much money banks have to keep in reserve to cover bad loans, Rodríguez Valladares said. And banks are already lobbying to make those changes permanent.

“Banks keep bragging they’re so liquid and well-capitalized and profitable, but they’re also asking for all these [regulatory] changes,” said Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal at New York-based MRV Associates, which trains bank examiners and finance executives. “There’s no guarantee,” she said, that easing up on the regulatory burden will mean a flood of new lending.

“If the Fed does lift the asset cap on Wells Fargo, then the bank should be required to submit weekly data on exactly how many loans it is not only approving but disbursing to individuals and small businesses,” Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, a capital market consultant and trainer who works with banks on risk and management issues, told Banking Dive on Monday.

Bank advisor Mayra Rodriguez Valladares at MRV Associates said JPMorgan and other banks might want to think twice about dividends. “Absolutely every market and macro signal is telling us that there’s rising probabilities of default for individuals and especially for companies,” Rodriguez Valladares said. “Banks need to shore up capital to sustain unexpected losses.”