#First Republic

6 10, 2023

FedFin Assessment: Basel Lays Big Plans for Basel V

2023-10-06T14:47:18-04:00October 6th, 2023|The Vault|

As we noted yesterday, the Basel Committee’s October meeting concluded not only with plans for new disclosure consultations, but also a report on lessons learned from the 2023 crisis.  We have long considered the “end-game” standards so substantive as to constitute Basel IV; now, as this report details, Basel is laying plans for Basel V via new liquidity, interest-rate, capital, and structural changes to the current construct.  We thus focus on the supervisory and regulatory action steps Basel posits as necessary responses to the financial-market volatility sparked earlier this year by SVB, SBNY, FRC, and CS’s failures.  While Basel states that none of its recommendations necessarily presages near-term global standards, …

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

11 09, 2023

Karen Petrou: The PCA Cure for Much That Ails New Banking Rules

2023-09-11T09:40:05-04:00September 11th, 2023|The Vault|

It’s a cliché, but it’s also true that one can’t beat something with nothing, especially in Washington.  This is an axiom well worth remembering when it comes to all of the new capital and resolution rules befalling the nation’s biggest banks.  I don’t think they need to be beaten back in their entirety – much in the proposals fixes vital flaws.  But the agencies have done a remarkably poor job conjuring the impact of each of these sweeping proposals, let alone their cumulative impact in the context of all the other rules and the grievous supervisory lapses that contributed to recent failures no matter all the rules that could well have sufficed if enforced.  Thus, the most obvious problems with this new construct are opacity, complexity, and most importantly reasonable doubts that, even with all these sharpened arrows, supervisors will still fail to draw their bows and then fire early and often.  All too much in the new rules is false science, as even a cursory read of the impact analyses makes painfully clear.  Instead of setting standards on lofty, unproven models, safeguards should rely on an engineering axiom:  use warning lights that force prompt and corrective action.  Think of the ground warning in an airplane followed by urgent “pull-up” commands and then go to work on the banking dashboard with clear, enforceable rules and new PCA thresholds forcing supervisory action and accountability.

The need for new PCA triggers is even more urgent than I thought when I first outlined

10 07, 2023

Karen Petrou: The Bankruptcy of Bank-Merger Policy

2023-07-10T14:18:07-04:00July 10th, 2023|The Vault|

On Wednesday, a Senate Banking subcommittee will consider bank-merger policy, surely providing a platform for its chair, Sen. Warren’s pronounced views opposing all but the smallest bank mergers and maybe not even those.  Many other senators are not as adamant, but even pro-business Republicans – see J.D. Vance – think bank mergers beyond the itty-bitty are at best problematic.  The politics of this debate is obvious; the substance not so much.  As with many other questions, bank-merger policy is best set with a keen understanding of recent, objective research and what it actually says about concentration as it occurs outside the gaze of those fearful only of still bigger big banks.

That there is undue market power in a financialized economy that brings a raft of woes is all too clear.  I thus hoped that Assistant Attorney General Kanter’s remarks last month would be a meaningful update of the Department of Justice’s anachronistic 1995 policy.  It helped, but only a bit because Mr. Kanter focused principally on enforcement, leaving “broader” questions solely to the banking agencies.

They in turn have long promised a transparent merger policy, but it’s still deal-by-deal, case-by-case, crisis-by-crisis.  More than a few mid-sized banks will wither away as deliberations continue because the sheer uncertainty and delays of most bank mergers undermine their economic value, particularly at a time of high interest rates, slow or no growth, tough new rules, and withering competition.

Recent antitrust research does not substantiate easy, blanket assertions about the benefits or …

27 06, 2023

FedFin on: Failed-Bank Compensation, Resolution

2023-06-27T16:13:11-04:00June 27th, 2023|The Vault|

The Senate Banking Committee has overwhelmingly approved bipartisan legislation to reform executive compensation following larger insured-depository institution (IDI) failures, with parent-company executive compensation also at risk in some circumstances.  Unlike previous bipartisan claw-back legislation, this measure is targeted to incentive compensation, not salary, expressly exempts “white knights,” institution-affiliated persons and directors, and gives the FDIC discretion also to allow senior officers to retain affected compensation in certain other circumstances…

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

 

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24 03, 2023

FedFin Analysis: Whom and What the FDIC and Fed Can Save How

2023-03-24T17:05:38-04:00March 24th, 2023|The Vault|

Recent editorials and other media have often said that the FRB and/or FDIC have powers or taken actions that is not the factual case as we understand it.  Members of Congress also appear sometimes willing to make assertions about what agencies can do now even if it is unclear if there is statutory authority to do so.  We have provided individual clients with key clarifications, but do so now more generally to support strategic and advocacy decision-making.  Of particular importance is the authority the FDIC is said to have or lack related to uninsured deposits; as detailed below, the agency actually has significant authority to do so as well as even to back BHC debt, as long as certain stringent conditions are met.  As detailed in FSM Report RESCUE65, Congress limited both the FDIC and Fed in hopes that….

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

17 03, 2023

FedFin Assessment: Future of U.S. Bank Capital, Liquidity, Structural Regulation

2023-03-17T16:50:38-04:00March 17th, 2023|The Vault|

In this report, we continue our policy postmortem of SVB/SBNY and, now, so much more.  Prior reports have assessed the overall political context (see Client Report RESOLVE49) and likely changes to FDIC insurance (see Client Report DEPOSITINSURANCE118), with a forthcoming Petrou op-ed in Barron’s focusing on specific ways to reform federal deposit insurance to protect only the innocent.  In this report, we look at some key regulatory changes likely as the banking agencies reevaluate the regional-bank capital, liquidity, and the IDI/BHC construct.  As noted in our initial assessment and thereafter, we do not expect meaningful legislative action on the Warren, et. al. bill to repeal “tailoring” requirements, but we do expect bipartisan political pressure not just for supervisory accountability (see another forthcoming report), but also regulatory revisions.

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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