Our Services
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
Barron’s, Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Fix Deposit Insurance, or the Bank Bailouts Won’t Stop By Karen Petrou Expanding the FDIC’s insurance limit of $250,000 “is not something we are considering,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a Senate committee on Wednesday. About the author: Karen Petrou is managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics and the author [...]
The Hill, Tuesday, March 21, 2023
What to know about First Republic Bank By Karl Evers-Hillstrom First Republic Bank is the latest financial institution to come under stress following the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history. The San Francisco-based bank, which had $212 billion in assets at the end of last year, has seen [...]
Politico, Morning Money, Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Deposit backlash By Zachary Warmbrodt How to head off future ‘viral’ bank runs — Federal Financial Analytics is out with a new report looking at ways policymakers may try to prevent future social media-fueled bank runs in light of SVB’s failure. Among the potential ideas: A mandatory early-warning system when [...]
Issues in Focus
The Vault
FedFin Assessment: GSIB Rules Set For Post-CS Rewrite
In this report, we assess the implications of recent events on two assumptions underlying current U.S. and global policy affecting GSIBs and those considered domestic SIBs: first, all are likely to be well insulated from illiquidity and/or insolvency and, when this is not the case, then orderly resolution without taxpayer bailout can be readily deployed. Credit Suisse’s failure and subsequent, subsidized acquisition is just one of the “Minsky moments” rattling [...]
FedFin Analysis: Possible Cures for a Viral Run
Among the most vexing issues in the wake of SVB’s failure is the extent to which social media may have led to the first “viral run,” a run akin to the meme-stock volatility that lead the SEC and others to fear a new form of “flash-crash” risk. In this report, we assess current policy options related to deposit runs resulting from social media, an issue cited frequently by HFSC Chairman [...]
FedFin on: The Collateral Damage of the Banking Crisis
In this report, we build on FedFin’s in-depth reports about recent bank failures to detail new risks for all of the innocent bystanders in the U.S. mortgage market along with a not so-innocent bystander: the Federal Home Loan Banks. We note also some take-aways FHFA may draw from the crisis with regard to GSE regulation, resolution, and supervision. In short, things will be different assuming they don’t get worse and [...]