Policy & Regulation

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is preparing to pick winners and losers in the consumer lending market, stifling innovation and curtailing freedom of choice.

Federal Reserve officials have hammered home the importance of bank readiness to borrow from the discount window. Getting banks to actually do so may require the Fed to make structural improvements to the system.

"Don't fight the Fed" is the mantra of investors. But, when the Fed does not allow banks to meet the needs of their communities and shareholders through unfair regulations, like the politically motivated CRA final rule, bankers have no choice but to go to court to seek regulatory justice.

Here's how the former regulator thinks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could exit conservatorship and where he sees the residential market headed this year and next.

The rule updates requirements for how systemically important clearing networks prepare for and respond to operational risks.

Net income at the nation's more than 4,000 banks dipped markedly in the final quarter of 2023, though for the full year it exceeded pre-pandemic averages. Deterioration in commercial real estate and credit card lending is a concern, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg says.

During a contentious exchange on his second day of congressional testimony this week, the Federal Reserve chair drew a line between the central bank's response to last year's bank failures and its current capital proposal.

Top banking regulators reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering the Community Reinvestment Act despite a court challenge, emphasizing their personal dedication to seeing the rule implemented.

The chair of the House Financial Services Committee called the last resort lending facility "a generation behind" broader capital markets. He said modernization should be part of the Federal Reserve's response to last year's bank failures.

The ruling further complicates an already complicated area — the law's mandate around beneficial ownership information reporting.