GOP Senators Start Bidding War on Antitrust Reform
Joining the rush of Congressional bills aimed at antitrust reform, Senators Lee (R-UT) and Grassley (R-ID) have introduced S. 2039, legislation positioning Senate Republicans as Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Klobuchar (D-MN) readies her panel for action on her bill (S. 225).
BIS Continues Campaign for Fintech/Designation, Not Just Like-Kind Regulation
In speech earlier today, the head of the BIS’s Financial Stability Institute, Fernando Restoy, continued the BIS campaign not just for like-kind activity regulation of fintech and bigtech, but also for entities-based regulation in key cases.
Waters Ramps Up Digital-Asset Action Plan
HFSC Chairwoman Waters (D-CA) today announced the roster for a new, all-Democrat Digital Assets Working Group. Yesterday, Rep. Waters laid out deep concerns with cryptoassets but said also that HFSC will hold a series of hearings on them.
CFPB Cracks Down on Military Lending
Responding to strong demands from Congressional Democrats, the CFPB today unsurprisingly reversed the Trump Administration agency’s finding that it lacked statutory authority to examine lenders and thus enforce the Military Lending Act.
SLR Seems Set for Rewrite; How, When Remain TBD
At his press conference today, Chairman Powell renewed big-bank hopes for a revised SLR. Although Vice Chairman Quarles earlier this month suggested that the Fed was thinking about other approaches to handle deposit growth, Mr. Powell emphasized that the leverage ratio may again be a binding constraint, not the back-up buffer for which it is intended.