Policy & Regulation

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said in statements Friday that their dissents from this week's interest rate decision were spurred by inflation concerns and a lack of sufficient economic data.

Know-your-customer rules are a longtime fixture of bank compliance regimes, but as autonomous AI "agents" increasingly access banking systems, new rules for verifying their status are desperately needed.

Leading Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee sent a letter to Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., pointing out the as-yet unsatisfied legal requirement for prudential regulators to appear in Congress semiannually.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors voted Wednesday to reappoint 11 sitting regional Fed presidents, without any dissents. The move precludes any effort the White House might have made to pressure the board to deny reappointments.

Enova International, a nonbank lender in Chicago, plans to gain scale by taking over Grasshopper Bank's national bank charter. The deal already faces skepticism from critics of Enova's high-cost lending model.

A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report on Pay in 4 buy now/pay later loans offered validation for an industry that has faced criticism for expanding into everyday spending, such as food delivery.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at a press conference after the December FOMC meeting, said the central bank is holding interest rates steady until it gets more clarity on the economy.

Pornographers, private-prison operators and digital-asset firms were among the industries that major banks curbed ties with over moral or reputational concerns, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's preliminary findings in its "debanking" probe launched earlier this year.

In a new interpretive letter, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will allow banks to serve as middlemen for "riskless" crypto trades, extending existing brokerage authority for securities to digital assets.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said digital asset firms' trust charter bids fit into the historic scope of the charter, refuting claims that a 2021 interpretive letter he authored as OCC General Counsel expanded the charter's scope.