Receiving Wide Coverage ... Rethinking Volcker: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is starting the process to revamp the Volcker rule on proprietary trading by banks. The OCC is expected to ask for public feedback as early as Wednesday on potential changes to the rule. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times
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The move by the OCC "raised investors' hopes that the process of loosening rules on Wall Street will succeed even though other areas of the Trump administration agenda, such as tax reform, are awaiting Congressional action — for which expectations have dimmed," the Financial Times said. Bank stocks rallied, with the S&P 500 financial index rising to 419.54, its highest level since late 2007, and shares of some individual big banks climbing over 1%.
Paul Volcker, Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, takes part in a seminar titled "Financial Stability Framework and the Role of Central Banks" in Washington, D.C., U.S., Friday, April 25, 2009. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News
JOSHUA ROBERTS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Splitsville: Bitcoin Cash, the bitcoin offshoot, got off to an inauspicious start on its first day of trading on Tuesday. The digital currency traded around $270, about a tenth of the value of original bitcoin, which was worth about $2,750.
"It is unclear how successful the new cryptocurrency will be, or how much activity it will generate," the Wall Street Journal reported. Most digital currency exchanges so far aren't supporting Bitcoin Cash, it said.
Financial Times columnist Izabella Kaminska writes that the split between alternate versions of bitcoin is "a judgment of Solomon moment. Only a decisive win by either side will prevent bitcoin from splitting itself apart."
Financial Times They're b-a-a-ck: Collateralized loan obligations, which have been blamed for causing much of the damage during the financial crisis, are starting to make a comeback, and Frank Partnoy, a professor at the University of San Diego, is concerned that the financial markets are ignoring their potential harm.
"Like its earlier esoteric cousins, a CLO bundles risky low-grade loans into attractive packages and high credit ratings," he writes in an op-ed piece. "Although most of the loans underlying these deals are of 'junk' status, more than half the new debt is rated triple A. Sound familiar?"
Sticking with London: Deutsche Bank signed a lease for a new headquarters in London, "confirming its commitment to the capital despite plans to move some staff to Frankfurt following the U.K.'s vote to leave" the European Union, the FT reports. "The commitment comes despite a warning in April that thousands of Deutsche Bank's U.K. staff may be forced to relocate after Brexit, since the U.K.'s departure from the EU is likely to limit banks' ability to serve European clients from London."
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper: The FT has a profile of Simon Cooper, the man charged with reviving Standard Chartered.
New York Times "Carl E. Reichardt, who as chairman and chief executive of Wells Fargo during the 1980s and ′90s introduced a leaner approach to commercial banking that served as a model for the industry, died on July 13 at his home in Belvedere, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 86."
Quotable "The path is a little clearer for some regulatory relief." — Brant Houston, managing director at CIBC Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management, about the possibility of revamping the Volcker rule.
The move comes about a year after rising delinquency levels prompted SBA to raise lender fees and tightened underwriting standards in its flagship 7(a) program.
Select ChatGPT users can now connect their bank accounts to the AI-powered chatbot for personal money management advice based on their financial history.
Suncoast Credit Union moved from one-time identity checks to monitoring members for the life of the account. It says fraud losses fell more than a third.
The $110 million settlement, which was mapped out last fall, requires Wells Fargo to establish a $100 million fund to provide downpayment and closing-cost assistance to eligible borrowers who live in or plan to buy a home in certain low- and moderate-income census tracts.
Whether red or blue, leaders share an affinity for battling fintech giants, as the liberal mayor is pressuring regulators to scuttle Western Union's plan to buy digital transfer Intermex, shortly following PayPal's 'DEI settlement' with the Trump administration.
Prashant Sharma, JPMorgan Payments' executive director of biometrics and identity solutions, spoke with American Banker about agentic commerce and how liability is shifting as a result of large language models.
