#arbitration – Federal Financial Analytics

12 04, 2024

Al041524

Eliza Allen2024-04-12T16:37:57-04:00April 12th, 2024|3- This Week|

The CFPB Stand-Off

On Tuesday, the HFSC Financial Institutions Subcommittee holds yet another hearing which Republicans hope will so embarrass the CFPB that their decades-long quest to redesign or even kill it gains traction ahead of critical litigation and the national election. The nominal topic of the hearing is the Bureau’s financial audit, and Republicans will surely make as much of it as they can to damage Director Chopra’s leadership. However, the real target is the Bureau’s race to finalize a series of substantive actions ahead of its own political challenges should litigation and the election go against it. The most immediate rule on the GOP’s firing line is the credit-card late-fee standard (see FSM Report CREDITCARD37), a rule now enmeshed in court decisions and challenges of unprecedented intricacy that nonetheless appear likely leading to a near-term injunction blocking the rule as lenders devoutly desire.

Al041524.pdf…

12 04, 2024

DAILY041224

Eliza Allen2024-04-12T16:38:09-04:00April 12th, 2024|2- Daily Briefing|

Barr, Tillis Warn CFPB Against Mandatory-Arbitration Ban

HFSC Financial Institutions Chair Barr (R-KY) and Sen. Tillis (R-NC) sent a letter to the CFPB today threatening to invoke the Congressional Review Act to overturn any newly-proposed mandatory-arbitration ban from the CFPB, warning that it would violate the CRA. This is based on the enactment of a reversal of the agency’s prior ban in 2017 which the Members state now cannot be vitiated by any proposal close to the one revoked.

IOSCO Adds CD, AI Workstreams to Revised Work Plan

IOSCO today announced revisions to its 2024 work plan, adding new workstreams to address opacity and illiquidity in the single-name CDS market as well as the integrity, financial stability and investor protection associated with AI along with monitoring financial-asset tokenization.

Daily041224.pdf…

14 12, 2023

DAILY121423

Arezou Rafikian2023-12-15T17:22:54-05:00December 14th, 2023|2- Daily Briefing|

Top Senate Democrats Heighten Payment App Scrutiny

Continuing to shift their focus from Zelle to payment-service providers, Senate Banking Chairman Brown (D-OH) along with Sens. Reed (D-RI) and Warren (D-MA) today sent letters to Paypal and CashApp urging them to adopt new scam-reimbursement policies.

Treasury Defends Russian Sanctions, Economic-Warfare Clout

Facing increasing assertions that U.S.-led sanctions are not meaningfully affecting Russia, Treasury today issued a blog stoutly defending sanctions effectiveness.

Reed Presses OFR to Subpoena Shadow-Bank Data

The principal sponsor of the Dodd-Frank provisions creating the Office of Financial Research, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), today defended the agency on grounds that it lacks a confirmed director, promising to push the appointment on the floor as quickly as possible.

Basel Targets Stablecoin Reserve-Asset Risk

Moving forward with “targeted” changes to current standards, the Basel Committee today outlined revisions to its crypto standards with significant practical implications.

Liang Disputes Over-Arching Need for New AI Regs

Treasury Under Secretary Liang today argued that AI is not fundamentally different than other financial innovations and is already subject to existing consumer-protection, safety-and-soundness, illicit-finance, and financial-stability guardrails.

FRB-NY Official Highlights AI Promise, Problems, Policy Action

Summarizing a recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York AI conference, the Bank’s chief risk officer, Mihaela Nistor, concluded that AI can now identify GSIB and GSIFI risk due to its ability to detect tail behavior not now captured by relevant models.

Democrats Urge CFPB to Take Second Stand Against Forced Arbitration

Sens. Warren (D-MA) and Sanders (I-VT) were today …

7 03, 2022

DAILY030722

Eliza Allen2023-04-04T12:23:58-04:00March 7th, 2022|2- Daily Briefing|

Liang Reiterates Climate, Digital Worries

Treasury Under-Secretary Liang’s comments to international bankers today addressed the U.S. financial-reform agenda after noting market turbulence and reiterating the importance and effectiveness of current Russian sanctions.

Mandatory Disclosures for Mandatory Arbitration?

Ahead of a hearing tomorrow, Senate Banking Chairman Brown (D-OH) released a statement on S. 3755, legislation cosponsored by senior Democrats on both the Banking and Judiciary Committees banning pre-dispute arbitration clauses and class-action waivers.

Hsu Emphasizes Sanctions Compliance, Climate, Inclusion

Acting Comptroller Hsu today told international bankers that they must ensure compliance with U.S. sanctions, heighten cybersecurity vigilance, and work together to protect continuing trust in cross-border finance.

FinCEN Sets Up Red Flags, High Alert

FinCEN today issued sanctions “red flags”, assisting compliance, but also laying out clearer markers for enforcement should its concerns about cryptocurrency and other possible evasions remain at individual institutions or exchanges. The release emphasizes SARs for immediate reporting of suspicious activities related to Russian state actors and/or oligarchs and related entities.

GOP Seeks to Widen Russian Financial Sanctions

As Congress and the White House wrestle with additional ways to sanction Russia, senior House Republicans today have advanced a package of bills which may well find at least some Democratic support. Among the most likely to advance on a bipartisan basis is H.R. 6900 from Rep. Huizenga (R-MI) expanding current sanctions on Russian sovereign debt to bar U.S. financial institutions from secondary dealings in Russian sovereign debt regardless of issuance date.

Daily030722.pdf…

13 12, 2021

M121321

Arezou Rafikian2023-05-23T12:34:07-04:00December 13th, 2021|6- Client Memo|

Why Pro-Competition Consumer Finance May Not be Pro-Consumer Consumer Finance

On Wednesday, several major crypto companies told Congress that the best way to govern them – should this be needed at all – is to create a new federal regulator that knows its way around the blockchain. One trusts this proposal is a sincere effort at constructive engagement, but anyone who has run the financial-regulatory traps longer than a DLT minute knows that proposing a single regulator is the most effective way to look earnest and yet still roam free outside the regulatory perimeter. There is simply no way Congress will pull itself together to enact a single crypto regulator. And, even if Congress could do so, it shouldn’t.

M121321.pdf…

13 12, 2021

Karen Petrou: Why Pro-Competition Consumer Finance May Not be Pro-Consumer Consumer Finance

Arezou Rafikian2023-05-23T12:35:00-04:00December 13th, 2021|The Vault|

On Wednesday, several major crypto companies told Congress that the best way to govern them – should this be needed at all – is to create a new federal regulator that knows its way around the blockchain. One trusts this proposal is a sincere effort at constructive engagement, but anyone who has run the financial-regulatory traps longer than a DLT minute knows that proposing a single regulator is the most effective way to look earnest and yet still roam free outside the regulatory perimeter. There is simply no way Congress will pull itself together to enact a single crypto regulator. And, even if Congress could do so, it shouldn’t.

Congressional obdurace about regulatory-agency rationalization isn’t because the financial-regulatory construct makes sense or even that Congress somehow thinks it does. Congress knew that the multiplicity of banking agencies created undue opportunities for arbitrage and captivity at least as early as the 1971 Hunt Commission report arguing for what the then head of the Senate Banking Committee, William Proxmire, called the “Federal Banking Commission” when he tried to create one throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. As banking blurred into financial services in the 1990s, the regulatory perimeter became even fuzzier and Congress tried to rationalize it in the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, ultimately having only minimal impact on the alphabet soup.

A new regulator – the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight – was created in 1992 for Fannie, Freddie, and the Home Loan Banks, but that was because the S&L crisis …