Politics

Michael Barr, awaiting confirmation as the Federal Reserve’s top regulator, wants to holistically rethink the central bank’s capital requirements. Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, has some ideas on how to do that.

A return of the Supervision Appeals Review Committee is a step backward for banks looking for an unbiased venue to challenge adverse regulatory rulings.

Michael Hsu has been acting comptroller for about 14 months. Since President Biden’s choice to lead the agency withdrew from consideration late last year, the White House has not floated any new names for his potential successor.

The Federal Reserve System is facing increasing demands from the Senate to revamp the process for granting master accounts, disclose more information to the public and pick more diverse leaders. That pressure makes executive searches at the Kansas City and Chicago Fed banks more complicated.

A decision narrowing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency could be enough for other industries, banking included, to push back against novel interpretations of regulatory powers.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters is the second top Democratic lawmaker to dress down the megabank in recent weeks. Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown wrote a similar letter to Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf in late May.

In a new interpretative rule filed Tuesday, the agency gave states a green light to expand on federal laws that protect consumers from unfair treatment by credit reporting agencies.

The next generation of Senate Banking Committee Republicans has signed on to the latest salvo by Patrick Toomey — who will soon leave Congress — against the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. That means the master accounts issue will live on.

Large banks are facing an increasingly difficult challenge on environmental and social issues: balancing the demands of progressive activists and their own employees with those of Republican state officials. One analyst calls it the “goldilocks dynamic.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and three bank trade groups said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s anti-discrimination policy exceeds its legal authority. 

Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is laying the groundwork to potentially declare that Facebook and another Big Tech firms pose risks to consumers.

It appeared Orion Credit Union had a green light to purchase Financial Federal Bank. But the Tennessee Department of Financial Institutions has once again asked a judge to stop the deal, claiming depositors would be "irreparably harmed" if it goes through.

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo joined Citigroup in pledging to expand benefits to cover travel for out-of-state abortions. Smaller banks in blue states were more vocal, with one female CEO saying: “I stand in disbelief.”

The New York megabank’s decision, which takes effect on July 1, emerged on the same day that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. JPMorgan Chase is following the lead of Citigroup, which announced a similar policy at the start of the year.

Paulson, who announced his retirement as a senior deputy comptroller, is one of three top staffers at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency who are departing or taking extended leave.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter, the bill’s chief sponsor, said the decision would allow people to “continue to be killed” as cannabis companies’ cash is targeted by crime.

Lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee voiced some scattered support for changes to improve the finances of the National Flood Insurance Program, but comprehensive reform appears out of reach. 

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., is said to have been withdrawn from consideration by the House Financial Services Committee because it lacked the necessary Democratic votes to pass.

Several Democratic bills to support down-payment assistance for mortgage borrowers and other housing programs met with protests from Republicans, who said the legislation would further fuel inflation. The GOP maneuvers failed, but they highlighted the parties’ differing priorities ahead of the midterm elections.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Board of Governors has a limited role in determining which firms are granted master accounts, an emerging point of contention between Congress and the central bank.