Biden Administration

President Biden said he’ll announce soon his choice of nominees for chair and other vacancies on the Federal Reserve, amid a scandal over stock trades by central bank officials.

Twenty-one centrist Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the provision, which banks have fought to keep out of the social policy package. Meanwhile, the White House made no explicit mention of it in a draft summary of the bill.

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a swing Democratic vote in deliberations over President Biden's social spending bill, signaled opposition to requiring financial institutions to report customer account information to help catch tax evaders. The measure "is going to be gone," he predicted.

In their first direct appeal to President Biden, financial institutions and other industries' trade lobbies called on the administration to abandon its proposal that would give the Internal Revenue Service new information on customer accounts.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council's guidelines for regulators avoided measures that banks feared such as fossil fuel loan limits and rigid new stress tests. But the panel is recommending rules that would require financial institutions to disclose their exposure to global warming.

Democrats proposed raising the account threshold and exempting certain transactions from a measure enlisting financial institutions’ help in catching tax cheats. But opponents say the changes are insufficient and centrist lawmakers — whose support is crucial to enact the plan — were mum.

Banks and other stakeholders are trying to stop a proposal requiring financial institutions to submit more account data, but the Biden administration says opponents of the measure are spreading the false notion that it would reveal information about specific transactions.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, the top GOP member on the Financial Services Committee, said lawmakers should take the lead in developing a policy framework for stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. He criticized Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler for suggesting the agency already has authority to act.

The Federal Reserve chairman told lawmakers that the central bank wouldn't try to block other cryptocurrency providers if it decides to issue a digital dollar. At the same hearing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen continued to defend a proposal requiring banks to report customer account information to the IRS.

Criticism from banking and other business groups of Saule Omarova’s candidacy could make it difficult for moderate Democrats to support President Biden's pick to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Requiring financial firms to report customer account data to the IRS as a means of catching tax cheats would be intrusive and costly, industry officials say. Backers of the measure say those claims are exaggerated.

President Biden urged a group of chief executive officers to help improve cybersecurity across the nation’s critical infrastructure and economy, citing a lack of trained professionals to adequately protect the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen lobbied the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee on the measure requiring bank-provided customer data to help crack down on tax cheats and pay for the $3.5 trillion spending plan.

President Biden plans to nominate officials for three Democratic seats on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the nation’s main derivatives regulator.

If Biden appointees are going to apply more antitrust scrutiny to bank mergers, they need to factor into their analysis the competitive threat that banks face from fintechs and other less-regulated players.

The Biden administration plans to select Kristin Johnson, a law professor who previously worked on Wall Street, for a Democratic seat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The White House and the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced steps to help nonprofits and public agencies buy foreclosed properties, among other initiatives, as part of a plan to boost supply over the next three years.

If the Justice Department and other agencies are serious about overhauling the bank merger process, they need to start by establishing whether consolidation helps or hurts consumers.

Federal Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard spoke with the Biden-Harris Federal Reserve transition team in January and with the president’s Council of Economic Advisers in May, her calendar shows.

Institutional independence is a big part of what makes the Federal Reserve work. But quantitative easing, new forays into climate and digital currency and a blurring of the line between monetary and fiscal policy might make that independence harder to maintain.