Arezou Rafikian-1, Author at Federal Financial Analytics

17 04, 2025

FedFin on: Antitrust Policy

Arezou Rafikian-12025-04-17T16:29:07-04:00April 17th, 2025|The Vault|

As required by an executive order (EO) from President Trump mandating both review and then repeal of any rules that adversely affect competition, the FTC is seeking public comment on which rules to target and whether these standards could be modified or must be rescinded to meet the President’s goals. This process will clearly invite new scrutiny of the bank-merger process, also likely to lead to comment from banking organizations seeking relief in areas such as de novo chartering requirements and access to brokered or reciprocal deposits….

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.

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24 03, 2025

FedFin on: Will the Sovereign Wealth Fund Buy Scorched Earth?

Arezou Rafikian-12025-03-24T15:12:07-04:00March 24th, 2025|The Vault|

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.…

24 03, 2025

Semafor, Monday, March 24, 2025

Arezou Rafikian-12025-03-25T13:35:57-04:00March 24th, 2025|The Vault|

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 process told Semafor — after concluding that the agencies and their workers likely can’t be merged without a green light from Congress….“There are two ways to consolidate federal bank regulation. First, you can change the law,” Karen Petrou, co-founder of Federal Financial Analytics, wrote in a recent note to clients. “The other way is for one federal entity to assert all the power it has under law, and maybe more simply to take de facto charge of significant Fed, OCC, and FDIC supervisory and regulatory policy. “Secretary Bessent has now made it clear that the Trump Administration will open Door Number Two,” Petrou added. Bessent’s plan builds on a recent order Trump signed directing the central bank and other independent agencies to submit regulations to the Office of Management and Budget for review, according to three other people familiar with the secretary’s thinking.

https://www.semafor.com/article/03/24/2025/treasurys-play-for-control-over-regulators-puts-it-on-collision-course-with-fed

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17 03, 2025

FedFin on: Why an SWF Might Solve the Conservatorship Conundrum

Arezou Rafikian-12025-03-17T15:58:03-04:00March 17th, 2025|The Vault|

An intriguing op-ed in today’s Financial Times posits a solution to the GSE-privatization problem: including them in the sovereign wealth fund (SWF) already being established by the White House. Could this work? It just might.

The full report is available to subscription clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here.…

13 02, 2025

FedFin on: Debanking Prohibition

Arezou Rafikian-12025-02-14T16:41:33-05:00February 13th, 2025|The Vault|

Reflecting broad political agreement that debanking should be prevented, a senior Senate Republican has introduced legislation that would effectively terminate a bank’s ability to do business upon any finding that it had denied fair access to anyone within its full range of retail and wholesale customers within the geographic areas the bank chooses to serve. The bill’s definition of fair access is expansive, for example permitting pricing differentiation only based on “proportionate” considerations that do not appear to consider factors such as a product’s or customer base’s relative profitability. Banks would likely err on …

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.…

23 01, 2025

FedFin on: Consumer-Data Monetization

Arezou Rafikian-12025-01-24T16:55:52-05:00January 23rd, 2025|The Vault|

Shortly before the inauguration, the CFPB released a request for information (RFI) on how consumer-finance companies handle consumer data, focusing in particular on data monetization. As an RFI, this request is not directly subject to President Trump’s order affecting pending rulemakings, but a new CFPB director could withdraw or revise it. Should that not be the case, the RFI could lead the new director to reopen the agency’s open-banking rule and/or mandate new privacy opt-out notices for nonbanking entities offering consumer financial services…

The full report is available to retainer clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here and here.

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21 01, 2025

FedFin on: Elimination of the Mortgage Payment Tax Deduction

Arezou Rafikian-12025-01-21T13:59:19-05:00January 21st, 2025|The Vault|

The long list of budget options for reconciliation released by House Budget includes two with direct GSE impact as well as one – elimination of the mortgage-payment tax deduction – that would pack a major punch across the sector and is sure to be as vigorously opposed as usual. The list thus also includes a less painful and less deficit-beneficial reduction in the principal amount eligible for payment deductions from $750,000 to $500,000….

The full report is available to subscription clients. To find out how you can sign up for the service, click here.

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15 01, 2025

Marketplace, Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Arezou Rafikian-12025-01-16T14:55:26-05:00January 15th, 2025|Press Clips|

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 Fargo, for example, both saw their net income soar 50%. Several factors came together in the quarter that spelled good news. “There was a lot of market volatility, and banks traditionally do very well when markets are volatile,” said Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. Petrou said volatile markets make people trade, seek advice and look for other services. Much of that volatility was based on election uncertainty. But Petrou doesn’t expect that to end. “Some of what the president-elect [Donald Trump] says may be just bluster, but bluster from the Oval Office really moves markets, and I think you will see a good deal of volatility,” Petrou said.

https://www.marketplace.org/2025/01/15/big-banks-fourth-quarter-earnings/…

21 01, 2022

Karen Petrou: Few Financial Fall-Out Shelters If Russia Invades Ukraine

Arezou Rafikian-12023-04-24T11:51:21-04:00January 21st, 2022|The Vault|

Perhaps nothing says as emphatically that market valuations are divorced from reality as the fact that equity and bond markets are essentially ignoring the increasing risk that Russia invades Ukraine. Investors have grown used to shrugging off geopolitical risks – see just the brief chills after Russia’s previous invasions of Crimea and Georgia as cases in point. But this time is different because this time Ukraine is a critical link in Europe’s energy supply, macroeconomic stress in Europe will have immediate global repercussions, and Vladimir Putin is making it more than clear that this time he’s not just playing around with minor nations he thinks of as vassal states. This time, he will go to the economic map if he believes the Western response to his invasion might pose too much risk to Russia’s economy and his popularity and there’s no reason to doubt him. As a result, I hope Treasury and the Fed are keeping a careful eye on the Treasury market and global payment system, not to mention on the cyber-security on which core market infrastructure rests. The threat is all too real.

Treasury has long known that the “nuclear option” when it comes to economic sanctions is denying Russia access to any financial institution with any kind of domicile in the U.S. or any point of access to the U.S. payment system topped off by SWIFT sanctions blocking Russian access to the global payment system. If Treasury fires these high-powered missiles – and it’s likely to have …

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