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Issues In Focus
The latest in-depth FedFin analysis on breaking strategic challenges and critical policy question.
Financial Services Alert
This analytical service is a battery of alerts and analyses that keep senior management up to the minute on federal developments that affect strategy and the bottom line.
Financial Services Management
Financial Services Management is the analytical resource for senior management. Sharp and concise, it provides detailed discussions of the implications of a wide range of federal actions.
GSE Activity Report
GSE Activity Report is the only analytical service so objective that the GSEs and their harshest critics, as well as the government and investors, all rely on it.
Expert Analysis and Testimony
Federal Financial Analytics managing partner Karen Petrou has on a selective basis agreed to serve as an expert witness in litigation germane to matters such as director-and-officer liability related to regulatory requirements, the manner in which financial institutions are resolved, and the role forward-looking regulatory planning plays in M&A transactions, contractual matters, and related corporate actions.
Engine of Inequality, by Karen Petrou
The first book to reveal how the Federal Reserve holds the key to making us more economically equal, written by an author with unparalleled expertise in the real world of financial policy.
Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy placed much greater focus on stabilizing the market than on helping struggling Americans. As a result, the richest Americans got a lot richer while the middle class shrank and economic and wealth inequality skyrocketed. In Engine of Inequality, Karen Petrou offers pragmatic solutions for creating more inclusive monetary policy and equality-enhancing financial regulation as quickly and painlessly as possible.
“Petrou’s book uncovers a hidden engine of our skyrocketing inequality: financial-policy. In an accessible and engaging prose, Petrou takes us through the inner workings of monetary policy at the Fed and financial regulations, how they’ve made inequality worse and how they could instead be retooled to take us to a more equitable future. A novel look at the problem of inequality and bold ideas to help resolve it. A must read.”—Emmanuel Saez, Professor of Economics at the University of California Berkeley and author of The Triumph of Injustice
Read full description and reviews.
Industry Expert
Federal Financial Analytics (FedFin) is a Washington-based financial services-consulting firm that has for decades attracted a high-powered clientele in Washington, on Wall Street, and among global central bankers. Since 1985 FedFin has provided a unique blend of analysis and strategic advice on public policy, regulatory, and legislative issues for industry and governmental clients doing business in the U.S. and abroad.
A proprietary think-tank for its clients, FedFin reviews critical federal and global policy developments in banking, insurance, asset management, and mortgage finance, analyzes them in great depth, and then advises clients on whether what they want can be made to work for them, within the policy environment and for the financial system. It is FedFin’s guiding principle to be an honest broker, and clients depend on the fact that the firm does not offer lobbying or any other services that could compromise its objectivity and independence.
As seen In:
In the News
Marketplace Morning Report, Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Bank supervisors under bipartisan fire from Senators Host David Brancaccio Lawmakers on Senate Banking Committee yesterday grilled bank supervisors and other government financial regulators over alleged failures in oversight leading up to the recent bank collapses. Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, walks us through what's been said [...]
Politico Morning Money, Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Bank crackdown takes shape By Zachary Warmbrodt Top Federal Reserve and FDIC officials are beginning to preview what the post-SVB banking rulebook will look like. Here’s what we know: Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, will tell senators at a hearing on SVB’s collapse this morning that officials [...]
American Banker, Monday, March 27, 2023
Isolated issues or systemic risks? The Fed's framing conundrum By Kyle Campbell Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr has two distinct, if not contradictory, messages to convey on Capitol Hill this week. Barr will appear in front of Senate and House committees this week alongside other bank regulators [...]
Issues in Focus
The Vault
FedFin on: Senate Banking Demands Supervisory Accountability, Transparency, Reform
Today’s Senate Banking hearing was extremely well-attended by senators on both sides of the aisle clearly looking first to understand what precipitated recent bank failures, who is to blame, and what should be done next. Republicans argued that current law gives the Fed considerable discretion without the need for statutory change. Although FRB Vice Chairman Barr initially sought to emphasize the need for new rules without blaming old ones, he [...]
FedFin Assessment: Policy Implications of FDIC-Resolution Innovations
As noted yesterday, the FDIC’s recent rescues have had several unusual features with implications not only for future policy, but also for pending special assessments to replenish the DIF for the $22.5 billion estimated costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund. Analyzed here, new tools – e.g., voluntary liquidation, equity-appreciation rights, lines of credit – have determine the extent to which this estimate holds, how FHLB advances are treated in future [...]
Karen Petrou: Another SVB Casualty: U.S. Biomedical Research
As seems always the case when fear has the banking system in its maw, myths have proliferated that are now also magnified and amplified by viral social media. One such myth about Silicon Valley Bank has it that most of its depositors were high-wealth, high-tech folk whom the government should never bail out. In fact, many depositors had no choice but to park all their funds at SVB, a more-then-dubious [...]