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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
Banking With Interest, Tuesday, March 18, 2025
How Treasury’s Bessent Is Upending Bank Regulation Not that long ago, the Treasury secretary mostly took a back seat to the banking agencies in crafting policy, stepping in only during times of crisis. Not anymore. Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, discusses Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s expansive [...]
Politico, Friday, February 21, 2025
Trump’s plan to rein in agencies sparks alarm for the Fed By Victoria Guida and Sam Sutton 02/21/2025 The Trump administration has made clear it will not directly interfere with the Federal Reserve’s ability to set interest rates. Almost everything else at the central bank is potentially on the table....“There [...]
Marketplace, Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Big banks are raking in cash By Caleigh Wells The end of 2024 was a great time for big banks. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, BlackRock — a bunch of financial institutions posted their calendar fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday. And a lot of them exceeded investors’ already rosy expectations. JPMorgan Chase and Wells [...]
Issues in Focus
The Vault
FedFin on: Trump Orders Improve Federal-Payment Efficiency, Increase White House Control
As noted, the President yesterday issued two executive orders demanding significant change to the federal payment system. In this report, we assess the financial-market and banking-system implications of the orders, one of which emphatically states that nothing done to enhance digitalization may be construed to authorize a central bank digital currency. The purpose of the orders is to reduce fraud, with the Administration saying that GAO has calculated annual federal [...]
FedFin on: Will the Sovereign Wealth Fund Buy Scorched Earth?
In this report, we do our damnedest to make sense of what’s been wrought at Fannie, Freddie, and FHFA in the few days since Bill Pulte took charge and Treasury Secretary Bessent mused about folding the GSEs into the sovereign wealth fund.... The full report is available to subscription clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here.
Semafor, Monday, March 24, 2025
Treasury's play for regulatory control puts it on collision course with Fed Eleanor Mueller and Rachel Witkowski Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s play for more control over US banking regulators, including the Federal Reserve, is about to enter a contentious new phase. The Treasury Department is drafting recommendations for streamlining banking regulators like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, three people familiar with the [...]