Politics

New York and other states have been far ahead of federal policymakers when it comes to crafting a supervisory structure for cryptocurrencies. The recent White House report on stablecoins ignored their work, and that was a mistake.

Lawmakers from both parties are pushing for legislation to automatically substitute a new interest rate benchmark for the expiring London interbank offered rate in certain hard-to-amend legacy contracts.

Maria Vullo, former superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services, plans to enter next year’s race for state attorney general, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The relaxation of Community Reinvestment Act and fair-lending enforcement by the OCC after President Trump took office deprived minority and low-income applicants in Memphis who sought credit from the bank for far too long.

Scott Anderson, president and CEO of Zions Bank, was recently elected chair of the American Bankers Association. In an interview, he encouraged Washington to scrutinize tech giants’ moves into financial services but expressed concern about some potential implications of financial agencies’ spotlight on climate change.

The bureau’s new director named former Obama administration officials Lorelei Salas and Eric Halperin, respectively, as the heads of supervision policy and enforcement.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council’s report on climate risk in the financial sector is a backdoor attempt to implement the Green New Deal, a Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee writes.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called Sherrod Brown, the head of the Senate panel that oversees the central bank, this week to discuss Powell’s sweeping proposal to limit securities trading by senior Fed officials, as well as Brown’s new legislation on the subject.

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.

A proposal that would enlist financial institutions’ help in raising tax revenue to pay for President Biden’s social policy agenda lost steam after objections from a key senator. The administration was said to be narrowing the plan’s scope to preserve its chances.

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.

The upstate New York company, which has agreed to acquire People’s United Financial in Connecticut, is the latest bank to negotiate a multibillion-dollar spending commitment with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

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 state has a poor track record of managing customer-facing operations. It’s difficult to see an upside in the current push for a state-run bank — especially when neobanks are already offering the same services it would provide.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen defended Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s record on regulating the financial system amid attacks by progressives seeking to deny him a second term — even though in the past she’s expressed some misgivings about rulemaking under his watch.

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.

Zions and BOK Financial are eager to meet the anticipated rise in loan demand despite regulatory attention on the financial risks associated with climate change.

A Louisiana panel delayed the approval of a $700 million state bond sale set to be underwritten by JPMorgan Chase as the attorney general pushes for information on the bank’s policies on gun control. 

Eric Halperin, a longtime consumer advocate, is the first big hire by the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Until we have true interoperability across payments platforms, competition will be stunted. Cryptocurrencies offer a model solution to breaking the hold banks and card networks have on consumer choice.