SIFIs

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. should rethink the review process for big banks' resolution plans, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Tuesday.

Several years after regulators began developing the "net stable funding ratio," there is good reason to ask if its utility has been eclipsed by other liquidity-related rules.

In a panel featuring the four living chairs of the Federal Reserve Board, Janet Yellen said that she does not share Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari's view that the biggest banks need to be broken up – but respects his opinion and the role of regional banks in the Fed system.

In a ruling that was unsealed Thursday, D.C. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer upbraided the Financial Stability Oversight Council for disregarding its own rules in its decision to designate the insurer MetLife as a systemically risky nonbank.

The U.S. government panel that decided MetLife was too big to fail erred by not evaluating the insurer's vulnerability to financial distress, according to the federal judge who rescinded that designation last week.

The international standard-setting body highlighted the benefits of a Federal Reserve-style supplementary leverage ratio for global systemically important banks, but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement and committed only to take public comment on the issue.

The United Kingdom's potential departure from the European Union has implications not just for British banks but for large interconnected financial institutions based here as well.

In a forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis aimed at examining progress made in ending the era of Too Big to Fail banks, academics engaged widely differing views on the nature of bank risk and how far regulators have come in addressing them since the crisis.

Rather than look at the hard problem of restructuring the banking system, critics of the largest institutions should focus on the more immediate issues pertaining to extremely high capital requirements, which may hamper economic activity.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's proposal to obtain trader source code sets a dangerous precedent of regulators impinging on firms' constitutional protection from search and seizure.

WASHINGTON – The public advocacy group Better Markets is calling on a federal court to explain why it has decided to seal an opinion, delivered Wednesday, that struck down MetLife’s designation as a systemically risky nonbank.

GE Capital has formally asked the Financial Stability Oversight Council to review and rescind its designation as a systemically important financial institution, setting in motion a highly anticipated process that has not yet been tried by a designated firm.

The DC District Court handed the insurance giant MetLife a big upset win when it struck down the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s decision to apply a systemically risky label to the firm, but with few other firms facing similar designation, the practical impact of the ruling is uncertain.

The DC District Court on Wednesday ruled against the Financial Stability Oversight Council's designation of the insurance giant MetLife as a systemically risky nonbank, though the opinion behind the order was sealed and the reasoning behind the decision remains unclear.

MetLife beat back a U.S. attempt to label it too big to fail, which would've put America's biggest life insurer under tougher government scrutiny and forced it to put more money in reserves.

The ambiguity over whether regulators favor risk sensitivity or simplicity in setting capital requirements does not help risk management efforts.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams discusses the potential for new fintech products to make predatory lending easier, whether big banks need to be broken up, and the likelihood of another recession.

Restrictions on bank ownership act as a de facto poison pill, discouraging potential activist investors from challenging underperforming bank managers. Ease those restrictions and the market will do its job.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew cast doubt Tuesday on whether recent moves by large nonbank firms to sell assets were driven by a desire to shed their regulatory label of "systemically important."

The Clearing House Association, a trade group including some of the largest U.S. banks, said in a comment letter Tuesday that the Fed’s proposed countercyclical capital buffer plan potentially violates administrative procedure laws.