Regulation

The Credit Union National Association’s Governmental Affairs Conference, normally the industry's biggest annual event, will be held this week in a virtual setting, a change that would have seemed unthinkable one year ago.

Rohit Chopra, President Biden’s nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has not minced words in calling out private companies for wrongdoing. He could get a grilling from Banking Committee Republicans and some opposition on the Senate floor.

Detecting business dealings with banned parties means screening a maze of transactions, and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control supports calls for the industry to take a risk-based approach. But regulators effectively require banks to track everything, which is unproductive.

The Federal Reserve imposed the restrictions after conducting supplemental stress tests tied to the pandemic. But Vice Chair of Supervision Randal Quarles says it is now clear banks would have had sufficient capital regardless.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said bank regulators still aim to write a universal rule updating the Community Reinvestment Act, despite years of disagreement between the agencies on how to proceed.

The Alabama company is instead on the hunt for nonbank acquisition candidates as well as employees or clients it could lure away from regional banks that have announced merger deals recently, John Turner says.

Lost in the debate about whether to make fintechs comply with the Community Reinvestment Act is that many of them already partner with banks to make loans in low-income neighborhoods.

Chair Jerome Powell told a congressional panel that the Federal Reserve is weighing whether to extend temporary relief from the “supplementary leverage ratio” — meant to help banks lend more during the pandemic — beyond March 31.

If policymakers are serious about revitalizing low-income communities, they should require all fintechs and other nonchartered lenders to adhere to the Community Reinvestment Act.

The five-year pledge, tied to the company's pending acquisition of CIT Group, earmarks nearly $6 billion for small-business lending and $3.2 billion for affordable housing.