BankThink

March 9-13: Conferences, hearings, bankruptcy volleyball

Washington will hear from all of its financial services darlings one way or another this week. Conferences will bring together powerful Hill voices and cabinet officials. Meanwhile, the bankruptcy bill the House of Representatives passed this week will begin to brew in the Senate. There´s no vote scheduled on it, but the unofficial goal is to get it done in the next two weeks. Also watch for movement on new legislation introduced by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, that would increase the amount of money the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. could borrow from the Treasury Department.

Monday

A three-day conference on the Community Reinvestment Act will kick off at 2:30pm at the Omni Shoreham. Speakers will include executives from Capital One, Citigroup, U.S. Bank and National City, as well as officials from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Board. Community advocates will also be in plentiful attendance. Policy buffs should watch this meeting closely; there will be a great deal to talk about.

Tuesday

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak at 8:30am to the Washington contingent of the Council on Foreign Relations on how to address systemic risk in regulatory restructuring.

The Senate Banking Committee will convene at 10:30am to discuss investor protections and securities markets regulation with yet-unannounced witnesses.

Wednesday

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will host a conference on restoring market confidence. Speakers include Dodd (whose public speech lately seems to dash market confidence as often as bolster it) at 10:45am; JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon at 12:45pm; and Harvard University professor Hal Scott, whose ideas on regulatory restructuring have found their way to influential people in Washington over the past year, at 3:30pm.

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit will hold a hearing on how to reform the mortgage lending business. Start time is 2:30pm; no witness list yet.

Thursday

The Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises will hold a 10am hearing on mark-to-market accounting. A witness list remains forthcoming.

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition is holding a four-day conference (which begins on Wednesday) on how to build a "financially inclusive society." Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., is addressing the conference at 8am. Sometime after that, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex., will hold a press conference to announce a bill to modernize the CRA. At 12:30pm, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will deliver a keynote address at a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

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