Ebrima Santos Sanneh

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. waived through the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler manufacturer's application to conduct banking activities. While banks have opposed ILCs in the past, other charters pose more pressing competitive threats at the moment.

A report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. found that business clients with large volumes of uninsured deposits fled Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic at unprecedented speed, contributing to those banks' collapses.

The trio of community bank regulatory relief bills passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday night would ease exam intensity and frequency for smaller firms; it would also expand Treasury mentorships between community banks and larger lenders.

The Consumer Price Index for April showed consumer prices rising across all categories, including food and shelter costs, and up 3.8% year-over-year. Grocery prices rose 0.7% from the month prior.

Banking groups that sued the state of Illinois over its law barring banks from charging interchange fees on taxes and tips cheered an appeals court ruling remanding the law to a lower court and vowed to keep the law going into effect, which is slated for July 1.

Employers hired an additional 115,000 workers in April, while unemployment remained unchanged at 4.3%. Despite the positive headline figure, a spike in newly unemployed workers and a rising number of underemployed workers suggests instability under the surface.

The measure, sent Thursday to the governor's desk, would mark the second state ban on interchange fees and could inform an ongoing bank-led legal challenge to a similar Illinois law.

Public comments on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's GENIUS Act implementing regulations highlighted the rift between banks and crypto firms over the permissibility of yield on stablecoin holdings, an issue that has stalled crypto market structure legislation for months.

Two U.S. banks have failed so far in 2026, continuing the recent pattern of smaller lenders collapsing abruptly due to firm-specific issues. January's failure of Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust and the early May failure of Community Bank & Trust – West Georgia both fit that mold.

The FDIC moved quickly on Friday to sell $288 million in assets Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia to Anchor Bank, but the sale announcement leaves the fate of $27 million in uninsured deposits to be determined. 

Even as they continue to press for additional changes, banks get some wins from the revised Basel capital framework and a ballpark estimate of their capital outlook for the next few years.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued an interim final rule Friday to clarify banks' leeway to charge interchange fees, explicitly blocking the applicability of a law passed in Illinois that would ban charging interchange fees on taxes and tips that goes into effect in July.

Fintech firm IntraFi's most recent quarterly survey of bank executives showed rising pessimism among bankers related to "instability in Washington," as well as growing concerns about technology-enabled fraud.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Thursday finalized a rule lowering the community bank leverage ratio from 9% to 8% as well as extending compliance deadlines. 

The Justice Department recategorized state and federally approved cannabis products from Schedule I to Schedule III, a move that falls short of full legalization but could ignite renewed interest from banks and credit unions in servicing state-legal cannabis businesses.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday defended cuts to the Community Development Financial Institution Fund in the president's 2027 budget, telling the Senate Appropriations Committee that the program had pursued a "partisan wish list."

Economists and policy analysts say a prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz — and uncertainty about the duration of the conflict — could drive up inflation and further weaken consumer sentiment, which could weigh on bank earnings.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sent an interim final rule to the Office of Management and Budget that would preempt a controversial Illinois state law banning the collection of interchange fees on taxes and tips interchange.

A rule banning bank examiners from using reputational risk in their examinations includes an exception for operational risks — another notoriously unquantifiable category of risk. Experts say the concession suggests the attempt to carve subjectivity out of bank examination may amount to a relabeling exercise.

A 21.2% spike in the price of gasoline was the biggest contributor to a 0.9% increase in the Consumer Price Index in March, according to a Friday report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The agency said other price increases were largely contained.