John Heltman is the Washington Bureau Chief for American Banker. John previously edited American Banker Magazine and is the creator of American Banker's narrative podcast Bankshot. He was awarded the Grand Neal, the top honor bestowed by the Jesse H. Neal Awards, in 2019 for his narrative podcast series Nobody’s Home, which examines the economic and social impact of concentrated vacant housing. He was also named the 2019 McAllister Editorial Fellow at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He is a 2005 graduate of St. Mary’s College of Maryland and lives in Baltimore, Md.
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The populist strain that has long animated the left wing of the Democratic party seems to have migrated to the Republican center, benefiting President-elect Donald Trump in this year's election. We're about to find out whether right-wing populism is as earnest as its left-wing predecessor.
December 17 -
Allegations of regulators pressuring banks to drop clients and customers because of political views or ties to legal-but-disfavored industries have sparked outrage among conservatives. But requiring banks to serve absolutely everyone would change the nature of banking in ways that aren't conservative.
December 10 -
Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman said Friday that regulators — chief among them the Fed itself — need to do more to combat check fraud, particularly the problem of smaller banks not being reimbursed by larger banks whose checks are altered.
December 6 -
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is giving the funds to more than 4.3 million consumers harmed by a defunct credit-repair conglomerate, the largest-ever distribution from the bureau's victim-relief fund.
December 5 -
President-elect Trump's embrace of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance is a political gambit that has already paid off. But greenlighting crypto's intermingling with traditional finance would create an asset bubble that would be especially painful to pop.
December 3 -
In a string of speeches last week, the top federal banking regulators outlined goals and framed their thinking about artificial intelligence in financial services, but the biggest questions around liability and widespread adoption remain unanswered.
November 26 -
While the risks, benefits and magnitude of artificial intelligence's impact on financial services remain unclear, agencies should keep an open mind toward the technology and avoid reflexive risk aversion in bank supervision, Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman said.
November 22 -
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said the FICO credit-scoring model has drawbacks in price, predictiveness and market competition, and stakeholders should develop a more open-sourced model that uses artificial intelligence.
November 21 -
Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said that while artificial intelligence is a potentially transformative technology, regulators should be wary of waiving liability for its use in banking.
November 21 -
The president-elect's sweeping victory last week suggests a mandate from voters to bring back the economy he presided over in his prior term. But his policies on immigration, trade and federal spending could give voters — and banks — exactly what they don't want.
November 12
