Banking Politics & Policy News
American Banker's Politics & Policy coverage delivers news and analysis on how legislative action, federal agency rulemaking, regulatory politics, and public policy debates shape banking strategy, risk, competition, and compliance. Coverage explores congressional priorities, executive branch initiatives, regulatory agency actions, and the political forces that shape and impact the operating environment for financial institutions, payments companies, fintechs and distributed finance companies.
Bank leaders must navigate a dynamic policy environment where congressional action, regulatory priorities, and political forces influence capital standards, supervisory expectations, digital asset frameworks, deposit insurance, consumer rules, and competitive dynamics.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday morning that consumer prices rose 0.3% in December, with annual inflation stuck at 2.7%, lending credence to the Federal Reserve's cautious stance toward interest rates heading into 2026.
January 13
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Financial markets took a tumble Monday morning after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced that he was the subject of a Justice Department inquiry concerning the central bank's headquarters renovation. Lawmakers and former Fed officials decried the move as political intimidation.
January 13
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Continuing to retreat from Biden-era rules, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice withdrew a 2023 advisory opinion that had cautioned about denying credit to immigrants.
January 12
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A report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, released Thursday found that most sudden account closures were spurred by supervisory pressure rather than political or religious bias on the part of the banks, a finding that is at odds with the White House's framing of the issue.
January 12
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Following President Trump's aggressive bank deregulation agenda, the FDIC and OCC, and occasionally the increasingly politicized Fed, are in a race to slash compliance requirements. Bankers should remember that the pendulum can always swing back.
January 12
K.H. Thomas Associates -
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank has been served grand jury subpoenas and been threatened with criminal indictment, moves he called "pretexts" to influence interest rates through "political pressure or intimidation."
January 11
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As the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening efforts fade into history, the major engine of economic growth in the U.S. will be bank lending. Regulators should keep a close eye on where those dollars are going.
January 9
