Brendan Pedersen

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, who won runoff elections to flip party control of the Senate, were assigned to sit on the panel for the 117th Congress.

A federal judge denied the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's motion to have the case thrown out, saying concerns about the agency's rulemaking process to reform the Community Reinvestment Act have merit.

The pandemic has decimated small businesses, and minority-owned firms have been hurt the most. How can banks and regulators jump-start the small-business economy?

Trump appointee Jelena McWilliams is slated to be the agency's chair until mid-2023. But legal experts say a provision in the FDIC’s bylaws gives Democratic members of the governing board, now in the majority, an opening to reverse earlier rules championed by Republicans.

The rule, finalized in the waning days of the Trump administration and scheduled to take effect in April, would have punished banks for denying services to certain firms without documented reasons for doing so.

President Biden and Democrats in Congress have backed plans to subject a broader array of companies to Community Reinvestment Act requirements. But there’s no guarantee such reforms will happen.

The new administration is wasting no time assembling a team of regulatory appointees and urging agencies to pause pending rules.

The administration faces a slew of immediate financial policy tasks, such as passing a new round of small-business aid, charting a course for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and filling vacant agency leadership posts.

After withdrawing two previous bids, the e-commerce company submitted an application to the FDIC outlining a significantly simpler business model for a proposed industrial loan company.

The OCC had hit James Strother and other executives with civil charges a year ago in connection with the bank's phony-accounts scandal. His monetary penalty is lower than what the agency had first floated.

Issued in the final days of the Trump administration, the regulation has united banks, gun-control advocates and environmentalists in opposition. It could be blocked by Congress or a comptroller chosen by the new president.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized a rulemaking Thursday morning opposed by the industry that forces the largest banks to provide services to gun businesses and other sectors to which banks have curtailed lending.

Brian Brooks may be remembered as one of the most controversial interim regulatory chiefs in recent memory, taking positions on the pandemic response, fintechs’ banking ambitions and other issues that won him supporters and critics alike.

A co-founder of Anchorage Trust Co. said its digital bank, which will not take insured deposits, will enable the company to strengthen partnerships with financial institutions that offer custody services for clients’ cryptocurrency assets.

In memos to their staffs, acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger denounced the violence perpetrated by President Trump's supporters and said both agencies remain in operation.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s proposal to ensure banking services are available to polarizing businesses contradicts long-standing guidance on managing reputational risk, big banks argue. But gun makers, energy firms and others say it would correct an injustice.

The digital currency and related distributed-ledger technologies could "enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and stability of the provision of payments," according to an interpretive letter issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Bank regulators traditionally steer clear of more divisive debates in a polarized Washington. But some observers worry acting Comptroller Brian Brooks has gone too far by wading into issues such as public health orders and banks' decisions to curtail services to the gun and fossil fuel industries.

The agency said it may exempt certain institutions from having to file suspicious activity reports if they have “innovative solutions intended to meet Bank Secrecy Act requirements more efficiently and effectively." But in those circumstances, law enforcement may still require SARs.

The agency’s second in-depth study of the community banking sector pointed to continued challenges for local institutions from the pandemic and other headwinds, but many smaller banks are reaping the benefits of M&A and holding their own against larger competitors in key lending categories.