Brendan Pedersen

The committee's top Republican warned that banks that prove too deferential to left-leaning social causes could face consequences the next time the GOP controls Congress.

The bank leaders were grilled on their long- and short-term expectations for the U.S. economy, the potential impact of capital reform under the Biden administration, banks' investments in Chinese markets, and the future of oil and gas lending.

The product of bipartisan negotiations reviewed by American Banker gives nonbanks the all-clear to issue stablecoins, but keeps the licensing powers with the Federal Reserve and bars algorithmic stablecoins for two years.

Three large regional bank CEOs will join their megabank counterparts delivering testimony to Congress for the first time this week.

"The SEC may not want to answer to Congress on its climate disclosure rule, but ultimately, the SEC will have to answer to the courts — which should make it nervous," the Senate Banking Committee's Pat Toomey warned the agency's chairman, Gary Gensler.

Many leading bank trade associations have called industrial loan companies a regulatory "loophole" that must be closed, but a bipartisan group of senators has their back.

Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called for rules to protect buy now/pay later and earned wage access users and harshly criticized training repayment agreements. But Sen Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and industry advocates defended financial innovation.

In an exclusive interview, the moderate Virginia Democrat and co-chair of the Community Development Financial Institution Caucus touched on the future of community development, cybersecurity and nonbank regulation. 

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey criticized the degree of "opacity" surrounding some community benefit agreements, or written deals between banks and community groups ahead of a merger that often involve billions of dollars of commitments.

The new Federal Reserve vice chair for supervision called for capital requirements that target higher-risk activities and more complex organizations; merger decisions that factor in a deal's impact on accessibility of financial services; and better tests for evaluating banks' preparedness for climate change.

It remains to be seen what the capped price for Russian oil will be or whether the move will stabilize world energy prices.

The 117th Congress has been surprisingly kind to the banking industry as a whole so far. Can the trend last through the fall? 

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the House Oversight Committee's consumer protection panel, sent letters to regulators and crypto exchanges demanding more be done to curb crypto fraud.

Banks have long lamented the lack of transparency surrounding the government's use of suspicious activity reports, which are submitted to Fincen and passed along to the department.

First elected to the House in 1992, Rep. Carolyn Maloney has played a key role in passing major financial legislation, including the 2009 "bill of rights" for credit card consumers. Rep. Jerry Nadler, another House veteran, won their intraparty clash forced by redistricting.

The $369 billion directed toward climate preparedness in the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to reverberate through the economy for years to come and could supercharge private investment in the nation's clean energy sector. 

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued the letters ordering the companies to stop making false or misleading representations of deposit insurance.

The law, signed by President Biden on Tuesday, represents the single largest investment towards climate preparedness in the history of the federal government.

A new bipartisan senate caucus organized around community development financial institutions is just the latest sign that the sector's political influence is reaching new heights. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney has emerged as a champion of overdraft reform in the House but faces a challenging primary against fellow Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler next Tuesday.