Election 2024
Election Preview
Analysts are watching both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump for potential regulatory picks, as well as how strongly Trump advocates for policies like tariffs and deportations that could impact the economy, inflation and bankers' prospects.
Markets welcomed the news of a second Trump presidency.
"If you had the Trump trade on for the last six weeks, it's been outstanding," said Ed Al-Hussainy, a rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle Investment. "The question is these winning runs don't last forever and is this a good time to take profits."
While the message from investors is broadly positive, there is also a stern warning in the market gyrations.
The surge in Treasury yields underscores concerns that Trump's policies will swell an already bloated budget deficit and reignite an inflation spiral that the Federal Reserve was only just finally quelling in the wake of the pandemic.
President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. signaled openness to withdrawing and resubmitting the Basel III rule.
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The failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic shook the banking system and sparked renewed debate among regulators and lawmakers about deposit insurance, bank capital and liquidity rules and resolvability. One year later, some of those policy debates have fallen by the wayside while others have been amplified.
Political contribution data shows that individual bankers have donated more to the Biden-Harris ticket than Trump in 2024, but overall have contributed more to Republicans than Democrats this cycle.
Keeping control of the Senate in 2024 was always a tall order for Democrats. Republicans thus far are on track to eke out a narrow majority — an outcome that would limit a prospective Harris administration's maneuverability in nominations and legislation.
Over the weekend Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said setting interest rates should be a "political decision" with input from elected officials.
As the 2024 election season once again puts the Federal Reserve's independence under a microscope, some observers see a weakness in one of the landmark policy arrangements that undergird the financial system as we know it.
Governor Tim Walz, whom Vice President Kamala Harris selected as her running mate Tuesday, has a slight but progressive record on financial policy, suggesting a potential leftward shift in banking policy in a prospective Harris administration.
Graham Steele, formerly the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department, laid out a detailed bank regulatory reform agenda for future progressive policymakers to consider that includes rolling bank Trump administration-era tailoring rules and accounting for the increased digitization of the banking system.
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Christy Goldsmith Romero — the White House's pick to succeed Martin Gruenberg as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — has generated little pushback from Senate Republicans, though her lack of bank supervisory experience and her record on cryptocurrency are the most likely lines of attack during her confirmation process.
June 17
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Bankers still mostly back Republicans, according to Federal Elections Commission data, but the Biden administration is centering its pitch for support on the economy, regulatory stability and promising higher taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
June 13
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A bill to draw crypto's jurisdictional lines between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pitting increasingly crypto-friendly Democrats against consumer protection hawks in the Senate.
June 3
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The bill includes a provision that would codify Republicans' and the banking industry's complaints with a Securities and Exchange Commission measure that banks say would bar them from custodying crypto assets.
May 22
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The next major chance the lawmakers could have on the so-called "swipe fee" legislation will come next year as Congress looks toward a tax package.
May 9
