Risk

Like it or not, Big tech is going to become a player in financial services. It would be better to write rules now than to wait for a crisis.

Stakeholders have been focused on what went wrong in the months before Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by regulators. However, essential risk management was missed more than a year ago.

To strengthen the industry, large regional banks should be subjected to heightened supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. should change how it assesses deposit insurance premiums.

Two former top bank regulators argue that efforts to eliminate risk from the business of banking is a fool's errand, and say it is time to refocus banks' managers and boards on the business of managing it.

The success of central bank digital currencies will be directly tied to their usability — by both individuals and businesses.

Borrowers from certain nonbank lenders that have been identified as magnets for Paycheck Protection Program scams also committed check fraud at elevated rates, according to a new data analysis. Banks could use that kind of data from the pandemic-era government program to spot bad actors.

Already well-established in other countries, a conduct risk authority would monitor banks for the kind of risky behavior that the current examination regime might miss.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John Kennedy, R-La., will examine the role of the Federal Reserve in bank failures in a hearing scheduled for May 10.

At the two big banks, proposed phaseouts of lending for new fossil-fuel exploration drew less shareholder support on Tuesday than they did a year ago. The results were a blow to activists who want big banks to take stronger action to combat climate change.

A study published after last month's crisis finds that banks can guard against rate-driven deposit outflows by keeping more liquid funds available. It also concludes that financial institutions with higher rates of uninsured deposits are more likely to face bank runs.