Consumer Awareness Key to Obama Plan’s Success, Tilman Says

2009-06-18 16:29:20.3 GMT

By Vincent Del Giudice

     June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Consumer awareness of loan and

investment risks must be a keystone of Obama administration

plans to overhaul the regulation of financial markets, said Leo

Tilman, president and founder of strategic advisory firm L.M.

Tilman & Co. in New York.

     “We need to educate consumers about the loans that they

take or the investments that they make,” Tilman said today in

an interview on Bloomberg Radio, that was simulcast on Bloomberg

television. “That’s absolutely a priority so that they

understand the kinds of risks they take on.”

     Tilman also said “we need to re-link originators to credit

risk” to ensure they “are explicitly interested in originating

the best kinds of loans to the most creditworthy borrowers.”

     President Barack Obama’s plan, unveiled yesterday in

Washington, would create an agency for monitoring consumer

financial products, make the Federal Reserve the overseer of

companies deemed too big to fail, and bring hedge and private

equity funds under federal scrutiny.

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--With assistance from Thomas R. Keene and Ken Prewitt in New

York. Editors: Carlos Torres, Brendan Murray

To contact the reporters on this story:

Vincent Del Giudice in Washington +1-202-624-1882 or

vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Chris Anstey at +1-202-624-1972 or canstey@bloomberg.net