William C. "Curt" Hunter didn't wait long before making waves for his new employer.
Four months into his job as the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's director of research, Mr. Hunter released an explosive study showing a wide disparity in rejection rates between marginally qualified applicants who were black and those who were white.
Mr. Hunter's study, released last week, counters a growing pile of fair- lending reports highly critical of the Boston Fed's work. (In 1992, the Boston Fed started a national debate with a ground-breaking study on lending bias at local institutions.)
It also drew immediate criticism from the banking industry, which decried it as statistically flawed and misleading.
But, the criticism didn't bother the Northwestern PhD, who said people always pick apart research results.
"I've been interested in these issues for years," Mr. Hunter said. "If you don't have an efficient allocation of credit, you won't have a robust economy."
Michael A. Moskow, president of the Chicago Fed, isn't bothered either.
"We had high expectations when we selected Curt, and he's certainly more than living up to those expectations," said Mr. Moskow.
Mr. Hunter, 47, joined the Chicago Fed as a senior vice president in March after a four-year stint as a vice president in the Atlanta Fed's research department.
Before that, Mr. Hunter taught at Emory University, Atlanta University, the University of Georgia, Chicago State University, and Northwestern University.
A 1970 graduate of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), Mr. Hunter also worked for the Fed's Board of Governors in 1982.
Mr. Hunter said the driving force in all his work is market efficiency. "I'm a big believer in free markets," he said. "I consider myself to be a conservative economist."
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The raft of megamergers may nudge regulators to improve the way they evaluate the quality of bank management, according to a couple of former supervisors.
John P. LaWare, who just retired from the Federal Reserve Board, and Robert L. Clarke, comptroller of the currency from 1985 to 1992, said that when banks combine the agencies worry most about internal controls and risk management systems.
"The first question is management," Mr. Clarke said in a phone interview from his office at the Bracewell & Patterson law firm in Houston. "Is there a point at which large banks become extremely difficult to manage?"
Of the five components of the regulators' Camel yardstick, Mr. LaWare said only "management" cannot be reduced to a numerical calculation.
"The weakest link in the Camel evaluation is management," he said. "When it comes to appraising the quality of management, it seems that all too often it is a derivative of the other four factors."
Mr. LaWare, who is now vice chairman of the Secura Group, said the government needs to upgrade its tools for judging bank managers.
"I'm not sure there is enough of that in the examination and supervision process," he said. "It's very difficult to do.
"I think all of the supervisory agencies are concerned with this issue."
That said, Mr. LaWare and Mr. Clarke agreed that the combinations announced in recent weeks - First Union-First Fidelity, PNC-Midlantic, and First Chicago-NBD - make sense.
"I don't see major regulatory problems with any of these because all of these banks are now in good financial condition," Mr. LaWare said.
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From the "You're kidding, their first love wasn't really banking?" category.
Thirty years ago, small bank advocate Ken Guenther and Senate Banking Committee minority general counsel Pat Mulloy were both members of the foreign service class of 1965.
The pair joined about 25 others for six months of State Department training. That's right, long before immersing themselves in banking policy, Mr. Guenther and Mr. Mulloy aspired to be diplomats.
Over the weekend, Mr. Guenther and Mr. Mulloy hosted a 30-year reunion for their classmates, two of whom today are ambassadors.
Mr. Guenther, who heads the Independent Bankers Association of America, spent five years in the foreign service, working in Santiago, Chile, and later here in Washington at the State Department.
Mr. Mulloy's stint lasted seven years, including an assignment to Montreal, where he tracked the separatist movement and heard French President Charles DeGaulle declare, "Vive le Quebec libre."
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Howard L. McMillan shudders when he thinks about what the banking regulatory landscape would look like if consumer advocate Ralph Nader had his way.
"Were the country to accede to your legislative and regulatory agenda for banking, we would only see more stifled innovation, higher-cost banking services, and customer information written by bureaucrats in Washington," the president of the American Bankers Association informed Mr. Nader in a July 11 letter.
Mr. McMillan was responding to Mr. Nader's July 3 letter slamming the banking industry for trying to scale back the Community Reinvestment Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
Community investment is an "indispensable aspect" of running a bank, Mr. McMillan agreed, but added: "We don't need Uncle Sam to tell us how to do it. We do need him to clear the regulatory and legal jumble to help us do it well."
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President Clinton has promoted Darcy E. Bradbury to Treasury assistant secretary for financial markets, reporting to Undersecretary John D. "Jerry" Hawke.
Formerly deputy assistant secretary for federal finance, Ms. Bradbury's responsibilities will include all debt issued by the federal government, as well derivatives policy and privatization of the Student Loan Marketing Association. She also will serve as the principal Treasury staffer on the President's working group on financial markets.
