Reviving Glass-Steagall: Elizabeth Warren wants to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that separated commercial banking from riskier financial activity and was repealed in 1999. "The biggest banks are collectively much larger than they were before the crisis, and they continue to engage in dangerous practices that could once again crash our economy," Warren said in a press release. She and three others cosponsors of the bill are proposing that banks get five years to separate their depository institutions from hedge fund, private equity, swaps and other higher-risk businesses. Now Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley is echoing her call for a big-bank breakup on the campaign trail.
Pelosi Distances Herself from Warren: Nancy Pelosi told CNBC that some of Warren's rhetoric about the banking industry is out of step with the rest of the Democratic Party. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, spoke about Warren's view that the administration has been too soft on Wall Street and too close with the financial industry. "The financial industry doesn't agree with that," Pelosi retorted. CNBC called Pelosi's comments unsurprising, given her need for some Wall Street backing if she's going to recapture a Democratic majority. She also was the Speaker that pushed through the Dodd-Frank Act that Warren claims should have been tougher.
No White-Washing Here: Wall Street's top cop, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White, is under fire. An OZY profile of her two years on the job highlights a cartoon campaign that asks "Where is Mary Jo White?" urging her to make good on promises that she would enact a rule requiring corporations to disclose their political contributions. The article also devotes some space to White's harshest critic, one Elizabeth Warren who last month penned a 13-page letter expressing her disappointment in White's job performance, citing a slowness to act and leniency toward corporate wrongdoers.
Merkel's Bully Pulpit: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday rejected Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' latest request for a new bailout. Eurozone leaders met in Brussels Tuesday for yet another emergency summit, where France and the European Commission fought to keep Greece in the Eurozone. But some European officials have been less conciliatory especially Merkel, who was characterized as Europe's economic bully in this article. "Merkel has played the unrelenting taskmaster, treating her beleaguered neighbors not as partners, but as spoiled children who could be set right only by the rod," Bloomberg Businessweek wrote.
Role Call
TD Bank Group has named Nandita Bakhshi its North American head of direct channels, a position in which she will oversee digital, phone and ATM banking. Michael Rhodes succeeded Bakhshi in the role of U.S. Head of Consumer Banking.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has named Helen Mucciolo its executive vice president, principal financial officer and head of its corporate group. The 20-year veteran of the New York Fed helped facilitate JPMorgan Chase's acquisition of Bear Stearns and the restructuring of American International Group.
Stacey Friedman will become the general counsel of JPMorgan Chase early next year. She is currently the general counsel of JPMorgan's corporate and investment banking unit, but will succeed Steve Cutler as the top lawyer for the entire company as Cutler moves up to vice chairman.
Suffolk Bancorp in Riverhead, N.Y. has promoted Anita J. Nigrel to executive vice president and chief retail officer, a newly created position. She was previously ran branch operations for 10 years.
Boston Private Financial Holdings has added Lizabeth Zlatkus to its board of directors. She had been CFO at Hartford Financial Services before retiring in 2011.
Special Report: CROs
The American Banker C-Suite Series continues this month with a focus on chief risk officers.
In this slideshow, "CROs Dish on their Jobs," you'll find their perspectives on the skills needed to do the job well, their biggest worries and other topics. Among those featured is Helga Houston, CRO at Huntington Bancshares in Columbus, Ohio, and one of the women from our annual ranking.
In a story looking at whether banks need chief risk officers (subscription required), CROs Nancy Foster of Park Sterling Corp. in Charlotte, N.C., and Diane Murray of Empire National Bank in Islandia, N.Y., weigh in. Murray discusses how having a CRO improves risk management. Foster says that while the advantages of having someone in that role are clear, it's not always necessary.
In another story, "No Room for Error in Compliance" (subscription required), some contend larger banks would have begun adding CROs even if the Dodd-Frank Act had not come along. "The bank does not have a CRO because regulators require it. It is fundamentally a good business decision and was made completely independent of Dodd-Frank or anything else," says Huntington's Houston.
In Case You Missed It
Forbes has released The New Money Masters, in which it profiles 21 people in asset management and shares their investment ideas. In her profile, Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPMorgan Asset Management and our Most Powerful Woman in Finance, offers this advice: seize every opportunity to teach your children about value investing. She says childhood lessons from her father have stuck with her and recounts how at the supermarket he would point out the difference in price-per-unit between branded and generic goods. A London newspaper couldn't resist poking fun at her fond memory: "Summer holidays must have flown by." Of the 21 people Forbes included in the feature, four others also are women: Francesca Gino, Jennifer Pryce, Amanda Steinberg and Manisha Thakor.
Sheila Bair, who led the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. at a time when nearly 400 community banks failed, says low interest rates and a top-down approach to regulation have served as a double-whammy for smaller banks (subscription required). In a Q&A with investment banking firm Hovde Group, Bair said, "The zero interest rate policies have not been a helpful policy for the traditional lenders. It is creating distortion and pockets of instability, and it is penalizing the traditional lenders."
