Neil Haggerty

The battle gaining the most attention Tuesday night will be which party controls the House next year. But other key races will help determine the makeup of the Senate Banking Committee.

The Federal Reserve Board’s meeting to discuss supervisory standards for midsize institutions will be closely watched by regulatory relief advocates and those who want the Fed to maintain its firm hand.

From Democrats winning control of Congress to an escalating trade war and technology companies applying for a fintech charter, there are plenty of scary prospects facing the industry.

The result could play a big role in whether banks see more regulatory relief next year or policymakers can coalesce around a housing finance reform plan.

Authorities intercepted the package sent to the office of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., on the same that pipe bombs were reportedly sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“We have actually discouraged banks from innovating,” FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams said in announcing a move that other agencies have made.

Banks technically relieved of the “systemically important” label in last spring’s legislative package are lobbying regulators hard over concerns that they could still face tough standards.

The retiring chairman of the House Financial Services Committee defends his often uncompromising pursuit of rolling back post-crisis regulations.

The central bank found that the increase in noncash payments fraud from 2012 to 2015 was still just a small fraction of overall payments.

In hundreds of cases, the prepaid card program run by the bank allegedly sent users’ funds to fraudsters who had stolen their data. The security lapse has now caught the attention of the Democratic senator.

The legislative highlights of his career as House Financial Services Committee chairman were bills too extreme to become law. But the retiring lawmaker says they were still worth pursuing.

Craig Phillips, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said the department is not trying to undermine the role of state regulation of fintechs.

The group is launching an "educational campaign" to praise the role played by House and Senate members in unwinding certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank.

The heavy workload is not limited to implementing the financial regulatory reform bill enacted last spring, as the agencies also work to craft reforms of the Community Reinvestment Act and adjust key capital measures for the biggest banks.

The agencies issued a joint statement on the types collaborative arrangements that a bank could employ to make BSA/AML compliance more efficient.

Financial regulators sought to walk a fine line Tuesday between reassuring Republican senators that they are quickly implementing regulatory relief and defending themselves against Democratic criticism that they are going too fast.

Fed Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles said in written testimony that the central bank plans to move quickly to determine how to regulate banks between $100 billion and $250 billion of assets, and that it may provide also relief for banks over the $250 billion threshold.

Seven Republican senators urged regulators on Monday to consider additional changes to the Volcker Rule's "covered funds" definition.

Republicans are calling on the central bank to relieve all banks with less than $250 billion of assets from enhanced supervision that was established after the crisis.

At least six Trump administration picks to fill financial posts are still pending, but the bitterly partisan divide over Judge Brett Kavanaugh has taken up most of the energy in Congress.