By Scott Lanman

     Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Duke, a career bank executive nominated for one of three vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board, has a confession: The stack of paperwork and fine print one gets when buying a home was too much even for her.

     "I should be able to make informed financial decisions,'' Duke said in a letter responding to questions from Senator Daniel Akaka, a Hawaii Democrat who sits on the Banking Committee.  "But, I confess, I closed on a mortgage to purchase a condo last year and never was able to get through all the disclosures provided to me."

     "The volume of paper was so overwhelming I just signed everywhere there was a highlight or sticky note,'' Duke, 55, chief operating officer of TowneBank in Portsmouth, Virginia, said in a Nov. 6 letter. She said ``plain English'' disclosures of key terms are needed and documents should be "easy to read."

     The responses from Duke and fellow nominees Randall Kroszner and Larry Klane, provided by Akaka's office, came after members submitted questions to the candidates following an Aug. 2 nomination hearing. Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, who is campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, has yet to schedule a vote on the three, whose confirmations have been pending since May.

      The candidates' answers don't include any remarks on the outlook for the economy or interest rates.

'Unscrupulous Lenders'

     Akaka's other questions dealt with financial education, high-cost ``payday'' loans and credit-card disclosures.  Kroszner, 45, a Fed governor up for a full term starting in February, wrote that he backs efforts to make sure ``unscrupulous lenders'' don't take advantage of consumers and that the Fed ``works to expand access to affordable small loans in many ways.''

     Klane, 47, an executive at credit-card issuer Capital One Financial Corp., said in his response that while financial education can steer customers away from high-cost loans, it's in consumers' interest that the government not ``prohibit or unduly restrict the responsible extension of credit across the full credit spectrum.''

     The Fed has operated without a full seven-member board since April 2006, putting pressure on governors as they navigate the credit collapse and housing recession that have marked Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's second year in office. Dodd has said the nominations are ``not a high priority'' compared with legislation his panel is working on.

     Kroszner has served as the Fed board's main liaison with the banking industry since Governor Susan Bies departed the central bank in March. Dodd clashed with him during the confirmation hearing, repeatedly saying that a new 14-year term was a ``long'' period. Dodd and other Democrats have blamed the Fed for lax oversight of abusive mortgage lending practices.

--Editor: Moss (mfr)

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