Opinions

Almost 60 SBA loans originated by Community Bank & Trust — West Georgia were classified as noncurrent, according to Small Business Administration records. Last week, Community became the second U.S. bank to fail in 2026.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, warned in a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Thursday that its proposed rollback leaves regional banks dangerously unsupervised.

The measure, sent Thursday to the governor's desk, would mark the second state ban on interchange fees and could inform an ongoing bank-led legal challenge to a similar Illinois law.

Fincen just proposed the most significant reform to AML compliance in a generation, but its reporting forms are still broken. A handful of key changes would meaningfully reduce compliance burden without reducing investigative value.

Public comments on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's GENIUS Act implementing regulations highlighted the rift between banks and crypto firms over the permissibility of yield on stablecoin holdings, an issue that has stalled crypto market structure legislation for months.

The Justice Department retreated from its plan to appeal a judge's ruling blocking grand jury subpoenas in the Powell probe, opting instead for a softer legal maneuver that keeps the investigation's future uncertain.

Two U.S. banks have failed so far in 2026, continuing the recent pattern of smaller lenders collapsing abruptly due to firm-specific issues. January's failure of Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust and the early May failure of Community Bank & Trust – West Georgia both fit that mold.

Community Bank & Trust in Georgia, the second bank failure this year, shows what happens when bankers don't keep things simple.

The FDIC moved quickly on Friday to sell $288 million in assets Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia to Anchor Bank, but the sale announcement leaves the fate of $27 million in uninsured deposits to be determined. 

Market watchers think Jerome Powell will maintain a low-key presence on the Fed board as he awaits the release of an inspector general report examining cost overruns at the central bank's headquarters.