Claire Williams

Despite big talk months ago, experts don't see a lot of political appetite to change bank oversight rules — or the deposit insurance system — in the wake of three large regional bank failures that happened earlier this year.

While talks between House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and ranking member Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., fell apart on stablecoin legislation, crypto anti-money-laundering bills quietly moved forward in the Senate.

The credit card swipe fee bill won't be in the defense spending package now, but the bill's Republican co-sponsor believes that it will receive a vote soon.

Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Graham Steele also spoke favorably of capital changes set to be proposed by banking agencies on Thursday.

Banks may be trying to pay less of a special assessment to recoup the losses to the deposit insurance fund after the regional bank crisis this spring.

Both Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and ranking member Tim Scott, R-S.C., said they would consider what reforms "if any" are necessary post Silicon Valley Bank failure.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee voted nearly unanimously to advance a bill that would halt a plan by the Small Business Administration to open up some of its loan programs to fintech companies.

As the Senate debates this year's defense spending package, analysts say the highly partisan politics of this Congress, as well as the banking industry's lobbying, make it difficult for Sen. Dick Durbin's, D-Ill., credit card legislation to slip through this round.

The House Financial Services Committee held a subcommittee hearing with senior staff from banking agencies, while the oversight branch of the panel questioned some large banks on their ESG efforts in asset management units.

Next week, the House Financial Services Committee will discuss bank regulator oversight bills, including one that would remove the Federal Reserve's Vice Chairman for Supervision position.

A draft piece of legislation would strike the section of Dodd-Frank that sets up the Federal Reserve's top banking cop.

Before a hearing in which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she would reintroduce legislation making it harder for large banks to merge, the Senate Banking Committee sent three Federal Reserve nominees to the full Senate.

Voters so far are lukewarm on the president's efforts to change the narrative around his handling of the economy, but the administration's bid to win the economic messaging war could cause Washington to come down more harshly on banks.

In a letter to Senate Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., highlights executive compensation and cannabis banking as priorities for the caucus in the coming month.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services released a request for comment on medical debt financing products. At the same time, the White House said that the agencies will explore whether efforts to sign up customers are breaking the law.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, challenged the idea that credit card late fees serve as a deterrent to delinquency, instead saying issuers told her office that some of them earn tens of millions of dollars collecting late fees.

Bank of New York Mellon didn't think it would need to record on its balance sheet digital assets held in custody when it asked the New York State Department of Financial Services for permission to offer the service, according to a filing obtained by American Banker. The SEC has since said otherwise.

The Federal Reserve's highly anticipated stress tests indicate that all banks are sufficiently capitalized to weather an economic downturn, but midsize banks were among those with the lowest minimum capital levels.

Philip Jefferson, a current Federal Reserve Board member, is President Biden's nominee to be vice chairman of the central bank. At a Senate hearing, he gave measured responses to questions about the potential for heightened regulation of midsize banks.

The Senate Banking Committee sent the bill led by the panel's chairman, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and ranking member Tim Scott, R-S.C., to the full Senate in a 21-2 vote.