Policy News from American Banker

Chair Travis Hill said SVB showed banks can't always sell securities fast enough to cover deposit outflows, but acknowledged the "stigma problem" with discount window borrowing remains unsolved.

A potential deletion from a long-standing regulatory definition has banks questioning how to classify vast swaths of their lending books.

Guidance documents from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network heightening bank scrutiny of individual tax identification numbers in mortgage applications could discourage banks from issuing those kinds of loans.

The newly minted Fed chairman announced working groups for his five top policy priorities and strictly refrained from forward guidance in his debut press conference Wednesday afternoon.

The clarification spells out what banks can share to stop scams. The Bank Policy Institute welcomed it but wants Congress to write the protection into law.

The new Fed chair takes his seat for the first time but may find it was easier to be an outside critic than inside leader.

Newly minted Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will host his inaugural press conference on Wednesday. Bankers will be paying close attention to what he says — and how he says it.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's annual report to Congress asks for enforcement and referral powers beyond the limited ones it currently has.

Two industry leaders at American Banker's Digital Banking conference said banks' fraud and identity controls weren't built for software acting as the customer.

Zelle, Western Union, SoFi and others are all launching stablecoins, adding to the thousands of other digital assets that do essentially the same thing as bitcoin.

BofA is using an old-school method to battle the world's newest scams: in-person seminars, taught at brick-and-mortar branches.

Regulators have signaled that the speed of progress in generative and agentic artificial intelligence makes producing definitive guidance impractical. That does not remove banks' obligation to face up to their risks.

Stephen J. Scott, an investigator hired to audit the Federal Reserve's handling of Silicon Valley Bank before its collapse, says the probe is focused on "facts, not politics." But more than three years on, the biggest question surrounding the U.S.'s second most costly bank failure for many is who bears the blame.

Multiple states are testing the ability of federal banking regulations to preempt state laws. If they succeed, a core pillar of the U.S. economy — the dual banking system — could begin to crumble.

Balance sheet reduction is a top priority of new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Achieving that goal means avoiding the kinds of disruptions that roiled the Treasury bond market in 2019, the last time the central bank embarked on quantitative tightening.

Lawmakers from both parties defended regional Federal Reserve banks against potential consolidation, arguing local economic perspectives are essential to ensure monetary policy remains sound.

The same groups want the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop its breach-disclosure rule while asking Congress to keep a confidential threat-sharing law.

The bank has decided it doesn't want to be at the mercy of tech companies and the price they demand for services, and is building its own "AI factory."

Regulators are not requiring banks to verify customer citizenship under a May executive order, which is a relief for banks. But how a new Fincen-led guidance will shift compliance expectations remains unclear, especially for smaller banks.

Federal prosecutors arrested and charged Mahender Makhijani, 44, with orchestrating a $100 million bank fraud against Western Alliance Bancorp.