Trump administration

The Financial Stability Oversight Council Wednesday published a proposed guidance focused on designating activities rather than individual firms for heightened prudential standards, making it more difficult for the council to designate firms going forward.

What was once a bipartisan and broadly popular housing bill has been weighed down with a pair of provisions that banks can't support. Even with those headwinds, the bill is more likely than not to pass, but not without drawn-out negotiations between the House and Senate.

A federal judge said Friday that the Trump Organization will have three months to collect new evidence and refile its complaint. It alleges that Capital One illegally closed hundreds of its accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol.

A rumored executive order that would require banks to verify the citizenship of their account holders would be incredibly burdensome for banks. It would also result in the "debanking" of untold numbers of Americans.

The reported reversal comes after the industry worried verifying citizenship would strain banks and push customers out of the system.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in a post-FOMC meeting Wednesday, said he intends to stay at his post until a successor has been confirmed, adding that he will remain on the Fed board until a Justice Department investigation into him is concluded.

It won't be long before the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz begins to make itself felt across various aspects of banks' balance sheets. If it's protracted, a new oil shock will force a major reassessment of asset values.

Over the course of its first year in office, the second Trump administration has neutralized the enforcement of key civil rights laws by reorienting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules and eliminating "disparate impact" that allows banks to be penalized for the discriminatory effects of policies without proving discriminatory intent.

A coalition of Democratic attorneys general, led by California and Illinois, have sued the Department of Housing and Urban Development over a guidance that they argue will scale back enforcement to strict federal standards and threaten state funding to enforce fair housing laws.

A federal judge ruled that acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Russell Vought unlawfully refused to request agency funding from the Federal Reserve Board, dealing a procedural blow to a legal argument that the Fed can only fund the CFPB when it turns a profit.

Federal bank enforcement actions have dropped sharply since the start of the second Trump administration, but experts' views vary about whether less enforcement will result in a buildup of risk in the financial system.

Before holding financial institutions accountable for new regulatory expectations, clearer guidance is needed on what constitutes appropriate risk-based decision-making versus impermissible "debanking."

Cameron Bready, the firm's CEO, noted the company's clients include 12 large Middle Eastern airlines, and the closed airspace "isn't ideal."

Chief economists at large and regional banks predicted ongoing inflation, in part because of the anticipated surge in oil prices as a result of the Iran war. The forecast from the American Bankers Association's Economic Advisory Committee did not account for the disappointing U.S. jobs report on Friday.

Panelists at a JPMorganChase webinar said oil shipping security is shaky, creating risk of a new wave of inflation that would impact energy finance. Other analysts said the war will create pressure for some parts of the payments industry.

Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released new legislative language Monday night that includes a ban on institutional investors' purchase of single family homes and a temporary ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency.

Experts said that judges reviewing ongoing litigation between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its employee union seem inclined to allow reductions in force to proceed if the CFPB presented a credible plan for running the agency.

After completing a migration to its proprietary tech stack, Chime is setting its sights on GAAP profitability in 2026 following a strong fourth quarter.

Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struggled to find a resolution to an injunction issued last year that halted reductions-in-force by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The CFPB is in an existential legal brawl against it's own acting director, Russell Vought, and President Donald Trump, whose confirmed goal is to kill the agency.