#FRB KC

1 04, 2024

Karen Petrou: The Frightening Similarity Between Key Bridge and Bank Stress Tests

2024-04-12T09:41:28-04:00April 1st, 2024|The Vault|

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Key Bridge passed all its stress tests before it fell into the harbor.  These were well-established protocols looking at structural resilience – acceptable, if not awesome – and, after 9/11, also at terrorist attack.  That a giant container ship might plow into the bridge was not contemplated even though this has happened before in the U.S. and not that long ago.  Which brings me to bank stress-testing and how unlikely it is to matter under actual, acute stress because the current U.S. methodology correlates risk across big banks in ways that can make bad a lot worse.  Even more troubling, tests still don’t look over the banking parapet.

To be sure, the Fed’s semi-annual financial-stability reports (see Client Report SYSTEMIC97) muse about risks that lurk outside the largest banks, and FSOC dutifully catalogs nonbank risk each and every year in a copious annual report (see Client Report FSOC29).  Last year, FSOC also said a lot about what might someday be done to address it via systemic designation (see FSM Report SIFI36).  But what’s being done, not just said, about nonbank risk even as inter-connections become ever more entwined?  Not much in the U.S. even though other national regulators are taking meaningful steps first to know where it lies and then to curtail it.

For example, the Bank of England and Australia’s Prudential Regulatory Authority are quickly moving past bank-centric stress testing, with Australia importantly looking not just within the financial …

14 02, 2022

Karen Petrou: Two Regulatory Decisions That Will Define the Future of Money

2023-04-04T16:07:43-04:00February 14th, 2022|The Vault|

Like all of you, we at FedFin spend a lot of time watching the U.S. Congress, but I’m increasingly wondering why.  Sure, there’s the blood and guts.  Watching Congressional deliberations is more and more like being a spectator at a hockey game for the fights or NASCAR races for the next fiery crash.  Does any of this carnage really matter?  Not much when it comes to vital, urgent financial policy questions such as what money has come to be in the United States.  With Congress mired in a never-ending cock fight, regulators hold the fate of finance mostly in their own fierce grip.  Even without deployment of the Fed’s nuclear CBDC option, two developments last week show clearly how much power regulators have to redefine U.S. digital currency.

First, there was outgoing FDIC Chair McWilliams’ offhand suggestion in her final remarks that stablecoins have all the characteristics of fiat currency deposits and thus could be eligible for FDIC insurance under current law.  As soon as he took the helm, Acting FDIC Chairman Gruenberg demanded tough cryptocurrency regulation, but he didn’t rule out deposit status for at least some stablecoins if the agency was satisfied with their stability.

The impact of an FDIC decision deeming at least some stablecoins to be deposits is hard to over-estimate.  As I detail in my book, what’s actually in a bank deposit isn’t what most people think they hold, i.e., a virtual pile of dollars.  In fact, money in the bank is …

14 02, 2022

Karen Petrou: Two Regulatory Decisions That Will Define the Future of Money

2023-04-04T16:07:34-04:00February 14th, 2022|The Vault|

Like all of you, we at FedFin spend a lot of time watching the U.S. Congress, but I’m increasingly wondering why.  Sure, there’s the blood and guts.  Watching Congressional deliberations is more and more like being a spectator at a hockey game for the fights or NASCAR races for the next fiery crash.  Does any of this carnage really matter?  Not much when it comes to vital, urgent financial policy questions such as what money has come to be in the United States.  With Congress mired in a never-ending cock fight, regulators hold the fate of finance mostly in their own fierce grip.  Even without deployment of the Fed’s nuclear CBDC option, two developments last week show clearly how much power regulators have to redefine U.S. digital currency.

First, there was outgoing FDIC Chair McWilliams’ offhand suggestion in her final remarks that stablecoins have all the characteristics of fiat currency deposits and thus could be eligible for FDIC insurance under current law.  As soon as he took the helm, Acting FDIC Chairman Gruenberg demanded tough cryptocurrency regulation, but he didn’t rule out deposit status for at least some stablecoins if the agency was satisfied with their stability.

The impact of an FDIC decision deeming at least some stablecoins to be deposits is hard to over-estimate.  As I detail in my book, what’s actually in a bank deposit isn’t what most people think they hold, i.e., a virtual pile of dollars.  In fact, money in the bank is …

Go to Top