Claire Williams

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.

Longstanding factors such as the share of local deposits held by each bank will no longer be the main considerations in determining the competitive effects of a deal, said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter. His speech was interpreted as a hint that banks seeking merger approvals could face tougher times ahead.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and ranking member Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., will have to contend with members of their own parties who would prefer a more sweeping executive compensation clawback bill.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., pressed the Financial Stability Oversight Council on the resurrection of its ability to designate nonbanks as systemically important.

Though the Federal Reserve's stress test scenarios were announced ahead of the string of bank failures this spring, the results will be a significant peek into the health of the banking system.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said that he has an "open door" for bipartisan rulemaking when it comes to the Republican crypto oversight bill.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said that two new bills would make the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network more accountable to the public as it moves toward implementing its beneficial ownership reporting requirement rule.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., has posted a discussion draft of stablecoin legislation that includes some concessions to committee Democrats.

Led by House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., Republican lawmakers asked the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to develop a plan to make sure small businesses can come into compliance with its new beneficial ownership rule.

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy debated bills that would lower some banks' regulation and allow banks to pay some Deposit Insurance Fund assessments with Treasuries.

For banks already dealing with higher funding costs, renewed competition from government-backed securities could bring more pain.

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee released a discussion draft of a bill that could classify many cryptocurrencies as commodities rather than securities.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and other Republicans have signed on to a bill that would bolster the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s ability to claw back the compensation of the executives of failed banks.