Trump admin ends lease for CFPB's headquarters

Published April 17, 2026 4:00 PM

Updated April 17, 2026 4:00 PM

1 Min Read

In this week's banking news roundup:

The Treasury Department ended the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Washington, D.C., lease, agreeing to transfer the property to the federal government's General Services Administration.
HSBC's Gerry Keefe, head of banking in Europe and the Americas, quit to take a role outside of financial services.
Deutsche Bank reported potential sanctions breaches involving Russian clients to the German financial regulator Bundesbank, and more.

Trump administration terminates CFPB’s lease

The U.S. Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated the 14-year lease for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Washington, D.C., headquarters and agreed to transfer the property to the federal government's General Services Administration at no cost, according to records obtained by Reuters.

The move comes as the Trump administration is seeking a favorable court ruling that would let it cut the bureau's staff in half.

In February, the OCC terminated the CFPB's 20-year lease and agreed to transfer the property to the GSA, which manages government real estate. The original lease required the CFPB to pay about $11.4 million in rent in 2012, rising 2% a year, Reuters reported. It's unclear if the CFPB will pay rent to the GSA going forward. The OCC cited 'costs and risks' associated with managing the property as the reason for the termination. —Kate Berry

HSBC’s top Wall Street, Europe banker Keefe quits after overhaul

HSBC's head of U.S. and European commercial and investment banking has left the firm just over a year after being put in charge of the business, following a major overhaul of global operations.

Gerry Keefe, head of banking in Europe and the Americas, quit to take a role outside of the financial services industry, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News. Jo Miyake, his counterpart in Asia and the Middle East, was named to take on Keefe's role on an interim basis.

Keefe was seen as one of HSBC's rising stars after joining from Citi in 2021 as head of banking for the Americas. He was then put in charge of merging its investment and commercial banking operations in the U.S. and Europe, part of a global restructuring initiated by Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery after he took over in 2024.

"Gerry Keefe has decided to resign from HSBC to take up a new role," a spokesperson for HSBC said in a statement. —Harry Wilson, Bloomberg News

Danske Bank error exposed 20,000 protected client addresses

Danske Bank last year inadvertently revealed the addresses of about 20,600 of its clients to outsiders.

The Danish lender "experienced an issue causing protected addresses to be visible to recipients of domestic payment transactions," it said in a statement Tuesday. The data was only visible if recipients opened detailed payment information, and other payment types were not affected, it said, attributing the breach to "human error during a planned system update."

Danske first noticed the issue in October and following investigations showed that it affected a substantial number of customers. In February, the bank deleted the protected address information from transaction details within its systems.

The company also asked other banks to do the same where possible, though it "has not been possible to delete the address information from documents that the banks in question have sent during the period." —Evelina Youcefi, Bloomberg News

Deutsche Bank reports itself to regulator over Russia clients

Deutsche Bank has reported cases of potential sanctions breaches involving Russian clients to German financial regulator Bundesbank, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The decision came after an internal task force uncovered instances of Russian retail client deposits exceeding the €100,000 limit, the person said, asking for anonymity discussing private information. The task force was set up after Germany updated its legislation in February to implement the EU sanctions
regime.

Banks are required to maintain strict controls to prevent the transfer of illicit funds. Deutsche Bank has invested heavily in controls after being criticized for lapses. It was raided by German authorities earlier this year as part of a money-laundering probe looking at past dealings by staff with firms linked to the now-sanctioned Roman Abramovich, setting back the lender's long-running effort to shed a previous reputation as a magnet for scandals.

Abramovich has denied wrongdoing. —Arno Schütze, Bloomberg News

Alberto Safra’s ASA hires Citi’s Gonzales for private banking

Billionaire Alberto Safra's financial institution, ASA, hired Antonio Gonzales from Citi to oversee its private banking operation in Latin America.

Gonzales will lead the building of ASA's platform for the region, overseeing teams across places such as Mexico, Argentina, Panama and Florida, the firm said in a statement Thursday. He previously worked as Citi's Latin America head for private banking, and before that was head of the Brazil private bank at JPMorganChase.

The firm also hired Mosche Majeski as head of private banking for the U.S., where he will build the operation in different key cities. He previously spent 15 years at Meridian Capital.

ASA manages 7.2 billion reais ($1.4 billion) in investments, according to February data from Anbima, a local capital markets association. Alberto Safra is one of the sons of Joseph Safra, the banker who built a conglomerate that made him the world's richest banker at the time of his death in 2020. —Matheus Piovesana and Cristiane Lucchesim, Bloomberg News