Kyle Campbell covers the Federal Reserve and housing policy for American Banker. Previously, he wrote about institutional investment in real estate for PERE. He has also held staff positions at Real Estate Weekly, the New York Daily News and the Southampton Press.
While banks appear to be well capitalized, the Fed outlined several areas of potential weakness in its biannual supervision and regulation report.
Bank loans to private equity, mortgage companies as well as other lightly regulated — and increasingly volatile — industries have soared in recent years. The central bank says it needs to know how leveraged those borrowers are and how much risk they pose to the banking system.
The Federal Reserve's semiannual financial stability report said the threat of continued high prices and the Fed's response to them are top threats for banks and other market participants.
Facing calls for more transparency around its account-granting processes, the central bank has proposed making a public database of institutions with access to its services.
Bank-to-bank transactions that currently take two days could be settled in 10 seconds using central bank digital currencies and blockchain technology, the reserve bank finds.
The central bank is budgeting initial losses for its long-anticipated instant payment system, which is scheduled to debut next summer.
The central bank terminated a cease-and-desist order issued against the Agricultural Bank of China and its New York branch in 2016 for breaking anti-money-laundering rules.
A growing number of economists and lawmakers think the Fed has gone too far in its battle against inflation. Powell is worried it hasn't gone far enough.
Ahead of this week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, where it is expected to enact another large rate hike, 11 lawmakers sent a letter to the central bank, urging it not to go too far.
Custodia's lawsuit with the Federal Reserve over master account access is poised to advance to trial. Regardless of the outcome, the case will be consequential.