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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
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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
American Banker, Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Wells shed its asset cap — but it isn't clear why By Kyle Campbell In 2018, the Federal Reserve Board's total growth restriction on Wells Fargo established a new tool for dealing with large banks with broken compliance cultures. Many in and around the banking space viewed the $1.95 [...]
Marketwatch, Monday, June 2, 2025
Trump 'revenge tax' may open new front in global trade war, with consequences for your wallet By Chris Matthews A little-noticed provision in President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and spending bill could spark the next battle in an escalating global trade war - and potentially unnerve an already rattled market for [...]
American Banker, Monday, May 12, 2025
Examiner discretion takes center stage in CAMELS debate By Kyle Campbell As freshly appointed agency heads aim to refocus their approaches to supervision, an emerging question is how much discretion will be left for bank examiners — if any at all. Regulators and lawmakers have already sought to remove [...]
Issues in Focus
The Vault
Karen Petrou: How to Fix Regulatory Capital? Think Big, Go Simple, Get Tough
Anyone who was surprised by Miki Bowman’s ambitious agenda hasn’t been paying attention. The new vice chair for supervision on Friday reiterated much she’s said before about supervision and regulation, now also saying more specifically what she’ll do about it given that she’s in a position to do it. Much in her plan is heartening, but one proposal is break taking in both its simplicity and importance: Ms. Bowman wants [...]
Karen Petrou: A New Trade War: Interest on Reserves
Clients will recall that, during his first term, Donald Trump nominated Judy Shelton, a frequent monetary-policy commentator, to the Federal Reserve Board. However, her nomination sparked outrage among Congressional Democrats and many pundits that doomed confirmation. Ms. Shelton nonetheless remains a trusted adviser to many with the President’s ear, making renomination and, this time, confirmation a strong possibility should Ms. Shelton still want a seat on the Board of Governors. [...]
Karen Petrou: Making Liquidity Regulation Make Sense
Although U.S. regulators remain determined to enact each rule as if it relates to no other, researchers have increasingly found that rules have cumulative and often conflicting purposes – see, for example, the sum total of bank rules which empowered nonbank financial intermediaries operating with impunity until they needed trillions in taxpayer backstops in 2020. Following a seminal Federal Reserve Bank of New York paper on the cumulative consequences – [...]